


The Parallel 2 Electric Boogaloo: Keepers of the Flame

by kireteiru



Series: The Parallel 2 Electric Boogaloo [3]
Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Canonical Character Death, F/M, GORE AND SLIGHT BODY HORROR WARNINGS FOR CHAPTER 15 (TWELVE), Game: Halo 4, Game: Halo 5: Guardians, Grief/Mourning, Major Character Undeath, Multi, Other, Post-Game: Halo 3, Post-Game: Halo 4, Post-Game: Halo 5: Guardians, Pre-Game: Halo 5: Guardians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:55:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 25
Words: 88,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25794745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kireteiru/pseuds/kireteiru
Summary: Look for the signs, Keepers of the Flame. They will lead you to war, and perhaps, to victory. | It's time to finish the fight.
Relationships: Blue Team & John-117 | Master Chief, Cortana & John-117 | Master Chief, Cortana/John-117 | Master Chief, John-117 | Master Chief & Original Character(s)
Series: The Parallel 2 Electric Boogaloo [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1576843
Comments: 11
Kudos: 47





	1. Prologue: Eternally Drifting

"…Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is UNSC FFG two-zero-one _Forward Unto Dawn_ , requesting immediate evac."

The cryobay was dark, for the most part. The only light came from a handful of screens at one end, illuminating ice particles and bits of debris set adrift. With no gravity to pin them down, they bounced off walls and each other and kept moving on random vectors, slower than before but never entirely still.

"Survivors aboard."

The screens displayed readouts of the ship's status. There were a number of hull breaches, all indicated in bright red, along with the entire forward half of the ship. One screen was entirely dedicated to the crew.

**CREW CAPACITY: 782**

**CREW SURVIVING: 1**

"Prioritization code Victor zero five dash three dash Sierra zero one one seven."

Another source of light flicked on in the bay, washing over the lone occupied cryotube. A soldier encased in green armor and a golden visor. The new light gave him a soft blue cast.

"Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is UNSC FFG two-zero-one _Forward Unto Dawn_ , requesting immediate evac."

The source of the new light was a blue, double-layered sphere projected from the top of a holopanel near the occupied cryotube.

"Survivors aboard."

The light flickered red.

_is anyone listening?_

* * *

_We have been floating aimlessly in space for one thousand, six hundred fifty-one days, six hours, and nineteen minutes._

"That doesn't mean-"

_Four years aboard this ship with nothing to do. No tasks to complete. For four years, all I have done – is think._

Ice formed slowly in the cryobay, but it had had four years to spread, filling the corners, piling up against the tubes, crawling over the screens. One of the showed the time of last contact with the UNSC, and for four years, the numbers had only been going up –

1 year, 4 months, 10 days.

1 year, 4 months, 11 days.

1 year, 4 months, 12 days-

13 days, 14 days, 15, 16, 17181920-

4 months, 5 months, 6, 7, 891011-

Ice, the still element, which holds all in potential. The cryobay was caught in its grip, but it could do nothing to slow the internal degradation of the only active occupant.

_For over four years, all I have done – is think._

The blue light flickered red again.

_What are you dreaming in there?_

* * *

_I hate you._

"Cortana!"

Red flickers.

_Stop it. I've made up my mind! If I'm going to die aboard this ship, then_ Chief _will suffer the same fate as me._

"Cortana, stop."

_You sacrificed everything – for him!_

"Control yourself."

_I can't._

"This isn't right. Something is-"

A gasp of pain rippled through the rarified atmosphere of the bay. Tendrils of light extended toward the occupied cryotube, beginning as soft blue but fading into vicious red. The tendrils flickered erratically over the tube, trying to do damage, but they weren't coherent enough to even scratch paint. Identical female voices cried out and scrambled to talk over one another, fought to make themselves heard.

_CortanastopIhateyouControlyourselfJohnPlease_

The orb flickered out, vanished, along with the occupant of the cryotube, in the briefest flash of multicolored light – no, not _one_ flash, but _two_. And in the space between them, less than the blink of an eye, they were gone. Then they reappeared with the second flare, exactly the same as they had been when they vanished. The ships systems would have whined and groaned had there been atmosphere to carry the sound of suddenly overtaxed computers – and anyone to hear it.

The orb of light flickered out again, leaving the bay dark for a long time, and only slowly returned.

_something slowed us down… something – interesting._

"I need to think."

_Thi **NKI** ng is **WHA** t's killing y **OU**_

* * *

"I don't recognize… I can't remember…"

An impact elsewhere on the ship jarred loose a segment of ice in the cryobay, which splintered as it began free-floating.

"…so much of myself."

A hose finally gave way after so many years without maintenance, its gases hissing free into the rest of the bay. It parted company with its O-ring as well. Something stirred at the sight of it, a distant memory – a ringworld, hidden, far away.

Without warning, a flare of orange light swept across the room, through the entire ship, setting off Klaxon alarms everywhere.

"Hello? Who's there?"

"It appears to be an alien construct."

"The data confirms it was not built by the Covenant."

_There's no need for more analyzing._

Red lights flashed throughout the ship, accompanying the alarms.

_We are in danger._

The ship began to shake, metal creaking and groaning, pipes shaking, tubing bouncing erratically. More ice and debris splintered and came loose.

"'Wake me when you need me,' you said."

For a moment, the cryobay was still. Then the outer sphere of blue light began to dissolve, sinking in and compacting, returning to the inner sphere, which began shining even brighter. Then it flashed, and became a young woman with short hair, made of a blue gradient just like the sphere. A panel appeared in front of her.

>WARNING!

>UNEXPLAINED COURSE ALTERATION

>GRAVITATIONAL FORCES UNDEFINED

>SPEED INCREASING

She looked up at the soldier in the cryotube, and came to a decision.

_Wake up, John._


	2. One: Reborn Along With Sorrow

John’s vision was blurred when he woke. That concerned him, but he couldn't understand why - until he came fully awake and jerked in the cryotube, slamming his hands against the glass and frantically looking around.

A UNSC ship - the _Dawn_. What-? Where was-?

His mind was quiet.

His _mind_ was _quiet_.

He hadn’t been alone in his own head for a hundred thousand years; not even his Flood-self had been spared in the return. And all his extra senses were gone, too - the ones he hadn’t even realized he’d grown to take for granted - leaving him deaf and blind and afraid. His skin crawled - but the Change didn't come.

His heart rate skyrocketed, breath coming in gasps. But Cortana was calling for him, so he forced back the panic, the _fear_ \- _where is my fleet where are my people I’m naked deaf mute blind alone in the dark_.

“Chief! Easy,” said the AI, “You’ve been out for a while.”

The latches of the cryotube hadn't been released. He forced himself to lie back again and wait. “Where are we?” Strange, to think that UNSC Standard was now alien on his tongue; he could hear his own accent from a hundred thousand years speaking Digon and the Common Tongue. It would fade quickly, though, as he got used to it again. (Hopefully.)

“We’re still adrift on the _Dawn_ ,” she answered, turning away a little to tap on a display that popped up next to her.

“Why did you wake me?” If it had been because of the _Fleet_ , she would have said as much right away. 

Or now. Instead, she said, “Hang on. Bringing your systems online now.”

The Spartan glanced down at his armor, noting that the plating had changed; she must have had the nanotech running updates while he was frozen.

“I rewrote your suit's firmware while you were out.”

That explained the new HUD, too. “You’ve been busy.”

“Activating the ship’s gravity generators.”

The main reactor must have still been online, despite all the damage the ship took from the portal and the time since. Everything floating aimlessly through the cryobay dropped to the deck, amid muffled reports from the ship’s automated systems.

“Chief, look up. You need to pull the manual release.”

The latches must not have popped automatically when the thaw cycle finished; something somewhere had malfunctioned. Understandable; the whole ship was a wreck. He pulled the handle and stepped from the tube, heading straight for the AI.

“Seems like old times,” she said with a grin, but it didn't reach her eyes.

There would be time later to talk. There _would_. “Ready to get back to work?”

This time the delight was real. She folded her arms and said, “I thought you’d never ask.”

She vanished in a spike of light, and he ejected her chip to slot her into his helmet.

Hot. She was _hot_ in his mind, like molten metal - like when he got her out of _High Charity_. He stopped. “Cortana?”

They were still in tune with one another; she understood but said, “No time. We’ve got intrusion alerts lighting up on multiple decks. Our best bet to find out who’s boarding us is the Observation Deck, four floors up.”

The Spartan pushed aside his concern - for the moment. He made his way out of the cryobay and into an info station. A sickly yellow hologram of the aft half of the _Dawn_ was suspended there, alert beacons and what few readings the hulk was able to put on display. He prodded the controls and waited until the system said that the weapons systems were online before he kept moving. “Could it be a rescue team?”

There was really only one worth mentioning at this point. Cortana was about to reply when the ship groaned under them. “Wouldn’t bet on it.”

He headed up a short stair, down another hall, and up another stair before his curiosity got the better of him. “How long was I out?”

“Four years, seven months, ten days.”

That made him frown. It had been seven months since their return. “ _Someone_ should have found us by now.”

They both knew who he meant, but Cortana didn't have an answer any more than he did. She stayed silent, and he kept moving up through the ship.

Another info center, but as he entered it, the ship groaned again. But this time it wasn't an impact - a red-orange-gold wave of light passed through the ship. He darted backwards, lifting the assault rifle he’d taken from the cryobay, but the energy passed harmlessly through him. “What was that?!”

“Sensor scan, high intensity!” Cortana answered, “Doesn't match any known patterns.”

They both knew it was Forerunner, but whatever installation was scanning them was unknown to them. That in and of itself was alarming; a hundred thousand years roaming the galaxy, and there was a Forerunner installation they didn't know?

More than alarming. _Terrifying_.

John kept moving. “How close are we to the Observation Deck?”

“It’s directly above us,” the AI answered.

His motion sensor wasn't picking anything up in range, so he slapped his assault rifle to his back plates and ran for the elevator banks. 

“The elevator doors look sealed tight,” said the AI, but it wasn't a problem for a Spartan. He’d fought with worse, and likely would again. He braced himself on the deck and began pulling them open.

“Chief, be careful-”

The vacuum beyond the door ripped it open the rest of the way, and he skidded a little along the deck as the decompression pulled him in. Then there was a crash behind him, and he whirled to see a handful of cargo modules flying toward him, caught in the drag. The Spartan managed to block them from doing any severe damage, but the collision made him lose his footing, enough force behind it that he slammed into the opposite wall of the elevator shaft.

“-because some areas might have lost pressure!”

“Right,” he said dryly, and started to climb. He felt weaker than normal, limbs just slightly shaky and slower to respond than he liked; it might have been cryo-sickness, but it might also have been that he wasn't used to being completely human again. For too long he’d had the strength of the Flood layered atop that of a Spartan.

(Or it might have been something more sinister. There was something drifting in the back of his mind, just out of reach…)

When he climbed free of the shaft, a Sangheili decloaked and came at him, snarling, a plasma sword ignited. The Spartan darted forward, caught the hand wielding the blade with one hand and punched the alien with the free one. The alien’s shields weren’t up – probably wasn’t expecting one of the Demons onboard – and the blow stunned it long enough for the Spartan to throw him down the elevator shaft.

“I thought we had a truce with the Covenant,” he growled, eyes flicking up toward the Observation Deck. If there were more foes, that was where they would be.

“A lot can happen in four years,” Cortana replied, “Either way, he’s probably not alone. We should be careful.”

There was another Sangheili at the main controls, with a clutch of sleeping Grunts scattered over the lower deck. The Elite’s back was to him, which was very much to the Spartan’s advantage.

His combat knife pierced the alien’s neck, severing a major artery and biting deep enough into the spine that he was dead before he hit the ground. But the sound of his body falling woke the Grunts, and they sprang to their feet and ran around in a panic, firing wildly whenever they spotted him - or thought they did.

The Chief gunned them down, then returned to the blast shield controls. “The good news,” Cortana said as he pressed the key to open the shield, “is these Covenant aren’t outfitted like standard military. It's possible we just came across a rogue salvage ship." The blast panels retracted as she spoke - revealing something that was definitely _not_ a salvage ship. " _Or_ , we might have stumbled into an _entire Covenant fleet_."

John was already moving back into cover even before Cortana alerted him to the Phantoms moving to board them on either side. He checked his ammo and grabbed more for both assault rifle and Magnum before bringing them to bear on the would-be boarders. “We need to get off this ship,” he told her.

“We’ve got bigger problems,” the AI reported, “We’ve got a cruiser on an intercept course. Head for the elevator banks.”

"Didn't the ship's sensors say we still had weapons systems online?" he asked, heading back the way they came.

"Yes," she confirmed, "but since the ship was torn in half, we can't access the weapons stations. We'll have to fire them manually from the outer hull."

The doors shut behind them. John took a deep breath and forced himself to be calm. This was no different than what he’d been doing all his life - eliminating threats to complete the objective. He pushed aside his body’s aches and pains in favor of fighting off the Covenant invaders.

The elevator doors opened, and the Spartan headed out, moving through hatch after hatch and gunning down all the Covenant in his way. Finally he reached the airlock leading out onto the hull. "The auxiliary launch station should be to your left out of the airlock," Cortana told him, right before his HUD started to distort around the edges with streaks of blues and pinks. "You'll have to prime the launch for ignition!" Even her voice was warped.

Worry spiked through him, his entire body going tight. "Cortana?"

"It's nothing," she insisted, voice still distorted, "Just get to the launch station."

The airlock pumped the atmosphere out, and the outer door slid open. The Spartan stepped through - and jerked back a little, eyebrows climbing to his hairline. "Uh- I'm sorry," Cortana said, her voice back to normal but filled with surprise that matched his own, "did I miss orbiting a Forerunner planet at some point?"

"One thing at a time," the Chief said, both to her and himself. There was a battle rifle drifting nearby, barely held in place by the _Dawn_ ’s minimal gravity. He set his AR loose and snatched the BR up to pick off the Covenant between him and the launch station. He could just see the station on the far side of the deck, on a raised platform overlooking the missile bays.

There were Jackals with carbines on upper levels, guarding the rest of the Covenant below. The Spartan aimed for them first, then went after the Grunts, more problematic than the Elites because of sheer numbers. The Sangheili were last, only a few, but one of them was an old veteran who actually knew what he was doing and played cat and mouse with the Spartan until the human finally slipped around and unloaded a full clip from the Magnum into him.

John hated space ops, both because of the minimal gravity, and because in the vacuum, he couldn't hear anyone sneaking up behind him, or even the sounds of his own boots as he sprinted up the ramps to the launch station. He hit the controls, and the panel flashed green, the deck shaking under him as the missile was primed.

On the other side of the deck, one of the silo doors creaked open, the missile sliding out part way, but there it stopped, grinding in place. "Great!" Cortana shouted, panicky but still sarcastic, "The blast door's jammed! The missile won't fire until it's cleared! Get down there!"

He was already in motion, circling the control panel and jumping down to the deck, running across the other silos. Once he reached it, he saw what the problem was and threw his weight against the damaged accelerator, finally kicking it into place. It sparked alarmingly but armed its payload, and the missile launched from the tube. "You did it!" she cried, "Get back!"

The Chief did as instructed and scrambled backwards, feeling the heat from the engines even through his armor, no longer infected but still wary of fire.

The missile slammed into the unshielded cruiser and detonated, breaking the ship apart. But there were at least seven more just in his field of vision, with more out of sight behind the bulk of the _Dawn_. There weren't enough missiles for all of them, and the ship herself was in bad shape. Even so, the Chief allowed himself a brief breath of relief-

-right before they were scanned again by the Forerunner Shield World, red-orange-gold energy shivering over his skin.

"Chief?!"

"The Covenant weren't the one's scanning us," he reassured her, right before panels in the shell folded back, bright white light from inside momentarily blinding him before his visor polarized. Then he felt the slow but irresistible pull of gravity - of a gravity well somewhere within.

"So, _NOW_ can we worry about the _giant metal planet_?!"

John turned and bolted for the airlocks. "We've gotta hurry!" Cortana was shouting, running through what data she was receiving from the _Dawn_ and his suit, "The second we cross the dome's event horizon, its atmosphere is going to tear us apart!"

"Where are the closest escape pods?" he demanded, not even bothering to grab his weapon.

"Aft vehicle bay," she reported, "I'm tagging the closest airlock, _go_!"

The Chief ignored the ship's system alerts as he darted through the hatch and waited impatiently for repressurization. When the inner lock finally opened, he bolted once more, disregarding the fleeing Covenant in favor of heading for the vehicle bay. More than once, the deck dropped out from under him as the ship fell apart, but Cortana's nav point and his own innate sense of direction kept him on the right track.

Until he reached a side hall, where a Covenant ship _slammed_ into the _Dawn_ and scraped past, tearing an enormous gash in the hull and causing catastrophic depressurization of what was left of the ship. It ripped him out into the emptiness even as he fought to keep himself inside. His hands were torn free of the catwalk’s railing, his body dragged out into the vacuum of space, and he thanked whatever gods were out there for the resilience of his armor as he swatted away debris that seemed to be trying its hardest to crush him.

They managed to pass without incident through the remains of a cruiser before they were hit broadside by a section of hull plating. The impact knocked the Spartan unconscious instantly, leaving him unable to control their descent as they fell into the planet.

* * *

When the Chief woke, they were on the inner surface of the shield world, and his entire body was screaming at him to stay where he was. He listened to it only long enough for the ache of the crash to fade - though other aches persisted long past what they should have. Then he struggled to get his body to respond to his commands.

Cortana had already activated the MJOLNIR's first aid systems, which included painkillers, so at last he was able to get his fingers to twitch, then curl into a fist. There was debris on top of him, restricting his movement; he pushed it off, then sat up and looked around. They were surrounded by the burning remains of both the _Dawn_ and Covenant cruisers, broken hulls and gear scattered for miles around. The Spartan groped for a nearby weapon, then pushed himself up onto one knee.

Cortana was ominously silent in his helmet, but he could still feel the warmth of her presence. "Where are we?" he asked lowly.

Her voice was tired. "Checking coordinate impact data – _we have asked you to give up your family, your childhood, your future-_ "

John tensed when he heard the distorted recording of Doctor Halsey. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it, then reached back and pulled out his AI's chip. "Cortana!"

Her hologram appeared over the chip in a flare of light. "I'm sorry," she apologized, hastening to reassure him, "It's the crash, I'm fine."

"Something was wrong even before we left the _Dawn_." That was putting both things lightly. He could take a guess as to what was wrong with her – the same thing that had been wrong _There_. But she’d been recompiled; she should have been fine.

"Chief, really. I'm fine." 

It might have been enough to convince him if her voice hadn't come out distorted again. He got to his feet without taking his eyes off her. "Cortana," he said, gentle but firm.

The AI's gaze dropped to her feet. "The _Dawn_ \- her systems and the chip couldn't handle it. I had to switch back to a partial...”

 _To the Riemann matrix._ A partial one, but with the burden of all the data she’d taken in - from him, from the _Fleet_ , from her own life - it was too much.

She was dying.

"We need to get back to the _Fleet_ ," he said.

She looked up, and he depolarized his visor so he could look her in the eye. "I won't recover from Rampancy, Chief," she said.

A thin veneer of cover, if anyone got a hold of the helmetcam footage. Even so, she looked as if she was trying to accept it herself even as she said it to him. 

The Spartan resisted the urge to try and _:reach out:_ to her. He knew he couldn't ( _deaf and blind and alone in his own flesh_ ), and it would only hurt worse to try and fail. "If we can just capture a Slipspace-capable ship," he told her, "we can get home and fix this."

Cortana looked up at him in silence, seeing the strength of his conviction in his eyes. Then she said, "Don't make a promise you can't keep."

A pair of Phantoms zipped overhead, ruining the moment. "We need to move!" the AI said, then vanished in a flare of light. 

John slotted her chip back into his armor and started forward. As he moved down a short slope and further into the wreckage, she said, "It doesn't look like the Covenant fared much better than we did."

"How many ships made it through the roof?"

"More than enough for our purposes."

The super soldier nodded and picked his way through the wreckage, grabbing a few undetonated grenades and more ammunition as he went, checking it all over to make sure it was undamaged and still worked.

There was a crevice in the rock on the far side of the canyon. He headed through it at half pace, tense and ready for combat. He was so wound up that he almost fired off a shot when Cortana spoke. "I'm picking up a faint transmission on the high-band," she reported, displaying the waves off to one side on his HUD.

"Covenant?" John asked.

"I don't think so," she replied, "the pattern's different. I'll try to triangulate its position."

He wanted to tell her to ignore the transmission and focus on finding them a way back to the _Fleet_. Instead he stayed silent, intent on keeping his footing as the ground sloped sharply upward. The light of the shield world's false sun made it impossible to see what he was making his way toward, but his motion tracker showed no contacts in range.

They emerged onto a ridge overlooking an enormous power complex, a trine of pylons floating over their housings and gathering vacuum energy from space itself. He took a moment to admire the architecture, the technology inside, the painstaking research and precision that went into constructions like it. Then he moved on, following the ridge as it curved away.

The wreckage of a hangar bay had hit the ground and fragmented, letting its contents spill out. Warthogs were strewn about like toys in the grass. Most were broken, some on fire, but there were two or three still drivable. The Spartan ran brief systems checks, then mounted up and got moving.

As he rounded a curve, Cortana began speaking, "Chief… about my 'condition…'" When he lifted his chin to show that he was listening, she continued, "I didn't want to mention it, seeing as how it's a complete long shot, but… it _is_ possible that getting back to the UNSC could help me find a solution for my Rampancy."

He understood. More cover, but also an option in case they couldn't find the _Fleet_ in time. "How?"

"Well, as far as I know, I'm the only AI ever generated from living tissue – a clone of Dr. Halsey, to be precise. It may be possible to recompile my neural net by replicating those same conditions - but that means getting back there. Soon."

John guided the LRV through more wreckage from the _Dawn_ , eventually moving out into a series of grassy canyons. They drove in silence for a time, then Cortana spoke again. "Chief, I'm hearing that strange signal again, stronger this time."

"Do you think there's something to it?"

"I'm curious more than anything. Its behavior is… _odd_."

The Spartan stopped the Warthog where the canyon let out on the edge of a wide grassy plain. The Covenant had already set up towers and barricades amongst the spurs of rock. A Phantom dropped off its load of soldiers to his left on a stretch of clear ground.

The Chief hopped out of the driver's seat and climbed up to the machine gun turret instead, waiting until the Phantom zoomed off to open up. The Jackals and Elite went down fairly quickly, but then one of the Grunts hopped into a Ghost and came zipping towards him. Despite the notorious inaccuracy of the machine gun turret, he was able to kill the Grunt without doing too much damage to the other vehicle. He abandoned the Warthog in favor of the Ghost and darted towards the Covenant, both shooting and ramming the aliens with justified malice.

He was about to leave the Ghost behind and move one when he noticed the orientation of the ramp and grav lift of the tower that he had shot down. It was right before the ridge stopping him from continuing on in the Covenant vehicle. It looked like if he used the Ghost's boost, he could get enough forward momentum and upward motion from the grav lift to clear the ridge and continue on without having to go on foot.

"What are you doing?" Cortana asked as he moved the Ghost into position.

"Bringing this with us."

The AI let an amused hum. “If you fail, I’m going to laugh at you. Just warning you now.”

John hit the boost. The Ghost shot up the ramp and into the grav lift. It tumbled once in the air, but cleared the lip with room to spare. The Spartan allowed himself a small smirk before moving through the canyon, gunning down a trio of Grunts who had come to investigate the commotion.

"If we're going to hijack a ship from these Covenant, we're going to have to find out where they're landing first," Cortana stated as John boosted over another small ledge.

"I don't suppose you have a plan for that?"

"We could always ask nicely."

" _'Asking's'_ not my strong suit."

The Spartan gunned down the Covenant forces in the canyon beyond their crevice-pathway. There was a Forerunner structure on the far side that the Covenant – these " _Storm_ Covenant" – were holding. He killed them too, along with the Zealot leading them.

"That Elite dropped his camo module. Let's have a look."

John jumped down from the Ghost to pick it up.

"I'll run a patch with your suit's firmware. Who knows – it might come in handy."

"Thank you," said the Spartan, "I'm sure I'll enjoy being able to invisibly slay my enemies once again." Cortana snorted in his ear, and he allowed himself a small smile of his own.

The door at the back slid open as he climbed back onto his Ghost. As he steered it inside, the AI brought up another wave display. "There's that phantom signal again."

John paused for a moment to listen. "I heard something that time."

The signal faded away. The inner door slid open, and John guided the Ghost into the chamber beyond. Then he started, involuntarily jerking the Covenant LRV backwards. " _Sentinels._ "

"I wondered when they'd show up."

The machines weren't attacking, but he had every reason to be wary of them. When Guilty Spark went rampant, they had just been doing their job, but it had shown him how easy it was for rogue Forerunner AI to add "Reclaimers" to the local Sentinels' targeting roster.

For the moment at least, they seemed content to guide him to the control panel at the back of the chamber. He touched the interface, and a holographic sphere flickered to life overhead. "It's a localized site Cartographer," Cortana informed him, "Hm… Okay – 'in service of Forerunner Shield World designate Requiem.'"

"Requiem. At least we know where we are now." ‘That name is familiar. _Divines_ , why is it familiar…?’

"Let's see if it can tell us what the Covenant are so interested in." When the AI tried to access the information, the hologram turned red, flickered, and disappeared. "Huh."

"What happened?"

"I don't know… It locked up."

The Spartan frowned and turned back to his Ghost, only to find that it was no longer there. He glared up at the Sentinels innocently orbiting the Cartographer, then pulled out the SAW that he picked up in the _Dawn_ 's wreckage. The Chief jumped down from the map platform and began walking back the way they came, when he noticed a ramp leading down below the central "spine" of the room.

He ducked down into it, and spotted a Forerunner sigil against one wall – the Eld of the Mantle of Responsibility. As he got closer to it, he saw that there were glyphs inscribed on the symbol. "'Guardianship for all living things lies with those whose evolution is the most complete,'" he read aloud, "'The Mantle of Responsibility shelters all.' What bullshit.”

"Agreed. Still, this is very interesting."

"Maybe," he replied, "but it won't get us home." With no further information forthcoming from the Eld, he headed back up to the main floor.

"I'm detecting power fluctuations in several locations," Cortana said after a moment, "I'll put them up for you." A pair of orange nav points appeared on his HUD. "Hopefully we can find some way to get this Cartographer back online."

John headed for the closest nav point. He recoiled once more when more Sentinels glided out of the side chamber right in front of him, but for the second time, they left him alone. He still waited until they were far enough away to be comfortable before he turned his back to them.

In front of him was a simple enough console: a thin black rectangle perpendicular to the floor with a large green button in the center. He pushed the button and extended the light bridge, then walked across it to the power core. The Spartan reactivated it, but as he did so, his shields dropped to zero, the alarm beeping, and the platform under his feet began to drop.

Purely out of reflex, he turned and jumped back up onto the light bridge, lifting his SAW. "What's it doing?" he demanded.

"It's alright," Cortana assured him. After a momentary pause, she continued, "This energy is actually a ferroelectric data field. Your shields are just cycling in response to the chamber's charge."

The warrior relaxed a little. "Will this bring the Cartographer back online?"

"Partially," the AI answered, "This type of processing system usually works in parallel. We'll have to locate its twin."

The Chief left the power core behind, but not before he peered over the edge. The platform had simply descended to a lower level, but even so, he hadn't liked getting caught off-guard by it. 

He was about to reenter the main chamber when his motion tracker flashed red with hostile contacts. 

Some Covenant had finally found a way inside. 

John crouched and switched his SAW for his battle rifle, then crept forward a bit at a time. A handful of Elites, a few of Jackals, and a small army of Grunts were now in the central chamber. The Spartan activated his new (well, new to _him_ ) active camouflage and began picking them off one by one, backing up when the battery ran down and he decloaked. After a few minutes, all of the aliens he'd managed to coax out of hiding carpeted the floor of the chamber, and he hopped down from his perch to pursue the stragglers.

He ran out of ammo for his BR in the ensuing firefight, so he dropped it in favor of a carbine he took from one of the Jackals. He was far more likely to find ammo for it than either of his human weapons, he reasoned when he swapped it out, even with the _Dawn_ ’s wreckage scattered over the inner surface.

The Spartan headed across the room to activate another light bridge, then the second data field. Again, he jumped back onto the first bridge rather than descend to the lower level. As he walked back across the bridge to the main chamber, a set of signal waves popped up again. "Is that the same signal?" he asked his AI. For a second, he distinctly heard a male voice say, _"FLEETCOM actual,"_ and _"UNSC survivor 883."_

"Yes!" Cortana crowed, "Mayday, mayday, mayday! UNSC AI Cortana to _Infinity_ , please respond!"

There were more Covenant in the main chamber again. As the Chief started shooting, he heard FLEETCOM respond to the _Infinity_ , who apparently hadn't received Cortana's transmission. "No response," the AI reported, "but from the strength of that signal, the _Infinity_ has to be close by!"

It took him twice as long to clear the room, mostly because there were twice as many enemies. He nailed as many of them as he could from afar with the carbine, then once again switched back to his SAW for up close and personal. At last, he made his way back to the Cartographer. He slotted Cortana's cartridge into the map's interface.

Cortana appeared on the holo display, along with the image of Requiem. When she reached out to interact with the display, it flickered red again and beeped in alarm before returning to normal. She shook her head and spun the dial, interacting with the map. A number of red tags appeared around the hologram of Requiem. "The Cartographer keeps acting like the transmission is coming from everywhere on the planet at once," she told her Spartan, "It doesn't want to triangulate _Infinity_ 's signal."

The hologram flickered again, and all but one of the red tags disappeared. The tag that remained was at the core of the planet.

The Spartan’s skin crawled, akin to the prelude of the Change, but again nothing happened. Something was wrong.

"I got it!"

"That can't be right. Scan again."

"We've already passed through one layer of the planet's surface," the AI answered, "It's not crazy to think that someone else made it deeper inside than we did."

"You mean the planet's hollow?" He’d never heard of a shield world quite like this ‘Requiem.’ All the ones he knew of were Dyson spheres, with the inner surface made habitable, not this - _matryoshka doll_ stuff.

Cortana seemed to understand at least part of his confusion. "Let me see if I can figure out a way for us to reach these coordinates that doesn't involve us digging a really big hole." A new map, horizontal, long and thin, popped up at about head level. "There's a Terminus on the far side of the complex," Cortana said, turning to look at him, "We can portal to the planet's core from there." She shot a glance back at the hologram.

"What?"

"…I don't know."

John made an executive decision, then; Cortana was a valuable resource for the UNSC, but first and foremost, she was his _wife_ , and the only person from the Parallel that he was sure was still alive. Getting her to safety surpassed the danger of the Storm Covenant - and whatever was making his skin crawl - on his personal priority scale. "If we have a shot at getting you back to _Infinity_ , we're taking it." 

When she assented, he reclaimed her chip and turned to head deeper into the complex. Yet as he walked away, he heard the Cartographer glitch again behind him. He put it out of his mind for now and asked the AI, "What do you know about _Infinity_?"

"Not much,” she answered honestly, “She was supposed to be massive, but the project was only in prototype when we left."

The Spartan ghosted down a short hall and exited into a large underground cavern. Or, formerly underground; part of the ceiling had crumbled onto the bridge spanning the chasm, letting sunlight in. It had also let in several Phantoms' worth of Storm Covenant. He fought his way across the first half of the bridge; the array of combatants was fairly standard, nothing to sneeze at, but nothing to get worked up over, either.

There was a Banshee on the upper level of the main bridge, just a short way across a lower, smaller bridge – a choke point. There were some Grunts, a few Jackals, and a pair of Elites on the other side. The Chief took out the Jackal snipers first, then the Sangheili, then the other Covenant, even going so far as to punt one of the Kig Yar off the edge to conserve ammo. Then he took to the skies, rolling the Banshee to avoid fire from the other aircraft.

The Spartan switched to the fuel rod gun and blasted one Banshee apart right away, then switched back and pursued the other, careful to keep himself out of range of the bridge below. When the second Banshee was also destroyed, he turned his fire on the infantry, hitting the Elites with fuel rod charges. One of them managed to dodge the initial blast, but misjudged his leap. He ended up flinging himself off the edge of the bridge.

John let out a quiet huff of laughter, then moved to strafe the remainder. They died under a hail of plasma, and he set the ship down on the far end of the bridge. As another huge door slid open at his approach, Cortana piped up, "Chief, the Covenant net's going _crazy_. They're ordering all units to converge on the tower."

"I guess we got their attention." The Spartan walked to the other end of the hall and waited for the next door to open in front of him, taking up his carbine as the light spilled in.

A Phantom had just dropped off a number of Unggoy near the door. The Chief picked them off quickly, but the gunfire drew the attention of the other Covenant in the area. Two Ghosts came zipping around the processional way leading up toward the tower. Through a stroke of his usual incredible luck, he managed to kill one of the Grunt pilots before the alien even fired a shot, then crouched and let the other Ghost's shots fly over him. When the firing stopped, he peeked up, took aim, and fired off a handful of shots, the last of which sent the Grunt sprawling to the ground, its Ghost moving an additional few feet before shutting down.

There was some UNSC ammunition scattered around the canyon. The Chief stocked up, and took out the Grunt manning the Shade turret set up nearby. He sprinted back to one of the Ghosts, bringing its guns to bear on the other Covenant running around on the processional way, then the ones taking cover on the observation decks on either side of the path.

The tower and the path leading up to it had been built to mirror something, the Spartan was sure. But exactly _what_ it mirrored, he didn't know, nor had he ever seen. Still, he knew enough to recognize that, to get angry at the Covenant on the Forerunners’ behalf for turning something sacred into a warzone. They _worshipped_ the Forerunners – they should have been more respectful of their constructs.

John gunned his way to the lift in the tower, clearing out the Covenant in his path, even the Hunters the aliens deployed in an attempt to take the tower before he could. He put away his weapons the moment the area was clear, and entered the Cathedral. Massive machine panels retracted in pairs as he approached, opening up the space inside, then simultaneously slid back into place when the lift at the back of the hall carried him up.

The Cathedral was lit with soft, sourceless blue light as he walked the path up to the Terminus interface. There were a number of low, square pillars on either side of the path, ripples of light travelling up their lengths to illuminate the sigils on their sides in a brief flash.

When he inserted Cortana into the system, the Cathedral came alive, portal anchors snapping together, suspended in the air. "According to the Cathedral, this Terminus is just one node in a large transit grid that spans the entire planet…" She trailed off.

"What?"

"When I tried to access the outlet closest to _Infinity_ 's transmissions," the AI answered, opening the console, "the system responded with this."

A symbol appeared, one he knew well. No matter the changes wrought in him or how monstrous he became in the battles he fought in the Parallel, that symbol was always engraved into his armor, integrated into the sigil for the _Fleet_. "Reclaimer," he said, "humanity." Though he was a little hesitant to move forward, wary of something he didn't know, the Spartan knew he had no choice if he wanted to save his AI. "That's got to be _Infinity_. Can you get us to those coordinates?"

"Let me try to open a portal." Cortana tapped at the display, the Terminus shifting as it obeyed her commands. There was a thunderous clank, and the pillars began to rise with the Terminus platform. "I'm picking up unknown energy signatures!"

"Where?" He could sense something too, but the Spartan didn't have her precision any longer, what had once been a shout now only the faintest of whispers.

"This can't be right!"

And then Forerunner constructs - blue-accented, bipedal, insect-like _things_ \- began materializing on the plinths, their carapaces fluttering like wings to vent heat.

"Set a waypoint out of the tower." John knew that Cortana was struggling with the Terminus, but he couldn't save her if she was destroyed before they reached the _Infinity_. Her safety was his top priority. They had to get out. "Cortana?"

A portal swirled open. "How did…" But like him, Cortana wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Quick! Into the portal!"

Without thinking about who created it or where it led, John snatched her chip from the system, then turned and threw himself into the vortex.


	3. Two: Reborn Hatred for Humanity

The portal spat them out on a platform in a short hall elsewhere in Requiem. It shut down moments after they passed through, but John didn't have to be as smart and quick as Cortana to know it wouldn't stop those things from following them. The shield world had a portal network; it wasn't exactly a stretch to imagine that they could tap into it and portal in and out under their own power. Doubtlessly, they were already on their way to their location.

Still, there was one thing he didn't know. “What were those things? We’ve never seen anything like them before.”

"Unknown,” the AI answered, “Some kind of advanced defense AIs, native to Requiem - or whatever passes for native. Relatives of the Sentinels, if I had to take a guess.”

The Spartan hummed in acknowledgement. “This planet’s just a ball of sunshine, isn’t it?” He walked down from the platform and across the hall. The door slid open in front of him, revealing a platform in a large chamber, aglow with purple light. 

He paused for a moment, eyeing the construct at the center of the chamber. It was something _massive_ , to be sure, surrounded by the crackling, pale violet energy of a stay field - an advanced form of suspended animation. But there wasn't time to think too deep on it; he continued forward up to the console on the platform, and slotted the AI in.

"This is Requiem's core, all right," said Cortana, "but _Infinity_ is definitely not here." An information panel popped up in front of her. She slid a few things around on it. "That construct at the center is amplifying the ship's broadcast like a relay."

"Maybe we can use it to respond."

"Perhaps." She shuffled a few more panels around on the display. "Those stay field beams coming off of it are creating the interference we've been experiencing. We'd have to take them out to contact _Infinity_. Opening a gate to the first beam pylon. Pull me, and let's go."

John tugged her chip from the console, then dropped down from the upper platform and walked through the gate, weapon at the ready. Cortana spoke again. "There wouldn’t be an active stay field here if there wasn't something - or _someone_ \- to hold in suspended animation. What do you think is up there?”

"Your guess is as good as mine. Probably better," the Spartan answered, then stopped again and lifted his weapon as a dozen little animal-shaped machines fled at his approach. They flickered at the edge of his motion tracker’s range, and the sight of them made his skin shiver and crawl. 

But they couldn't afford to linger. He kept advancing, and the Crawlers came back, one of them screaming at a pitch that made his hair stand on end. Most importantly - to him, at least - they dropped Forerunner weaponry - boltshots, suppressors - when he destroyed them, letting him lay hands on guns that he was now more familiar with than UNSC gear. 

Then he activated a light bridge and moved across - only to throw himself backwards out of range when one of the larger constructs jumped down on him from the canyon wall. It flared its face panels as it screamed in wrath – he got off a shot that caught it right between the eyes. As it dissolved in a swirl of golden flakes, the Chief clambered back to his feet. “What the hell was that?”

“From that peek under the hood, I’d guess that these constructs are mimetic in nature.”

He nodded in acknowledgement and kept walking, then paused and drew back a little when more of the constructs phased away as he exited the narrow stretch of canyon. "More of them?" When the AI mentioned it, he realized he could sense the things' portaling activity as a very faint crawling on his skin, almost like static electricity. 

Then they came on in a wave, the little animals charging at him for the most part, while the big ones stayed back and shot at him from afar. The Spartan gunned them all down, like he had everything else in his path. One of the big ones, however, released a third kind of construct, a little floating one with hover rings on either side, which zipped over and started reconstituting one of the big ones that he destroyed. “ _Hey_ _!_ Fuck you!” 

Cortana laughed softly in his ear. When all of them were destroyed again, she pulled up a screen on his HUD. “I've discovered something interesting about our new friends. When the big ones explode, that momentary flash we’re seeing is actually a data purge.”

“Can you tap into it?”

“So far, I’ve pulled multiple strings referring to the big ones as _Promethean Knights_. Beyond that, though… believe me, you're better off not knowing.”

He tilted his head down, glanced to one side, remembering too late that she was in his armor again rather than by his side. But she seemed to understand the reason behind the action, because he felt her heat shift in his neural lace, like she was trying to get closer.

He stayed there for a moment, briefly mourning their inability to help each other, then continued. They picked up another transmission from _Infinity_ , but it was almost completely drowned in static. “The relay interference is increasing. We must be getting close to the pylon," said the AI, right before the Spartan's HUD began glitching.

Before she could apologize, the Chief said, "It's fine. Don't worry about it."

"It's not fine!" Cortana snarled, before forcing herself to be calm. "It's not fine," she repeated, quieter, "I'm scared."

"So am I."

Anything Cortana might have said in reply was interrupted by their arrival at the target. The entrance was shielded by thick barriers of hard light, but fortunately, the power sources for said barriers were nearby. "When we get back, we really need to discuss the strategic positioning of control panels and power sources."

A number of Knights and the little animal ones - “Crawlers” - portaled in to protect the area, but they were all gunned down in clumps, by the Chief himself or by the autosentry he picked up off one of the Knights. There were a few more enemies up on the ramps leading to the tower, but they didn't have any more luck stopping him than their earlier relatives. 

The Spartan sprinted toward the core. "Chief," Cortana piped up as he ran, "You're going to want to see this." She brought up a shaky image off to one side on his HUD. It depicted Requiem from the outside, complete with the position of the _Infinity_. "They're not inside the planet at all," the AI said, "They're moving into orbit!"

John stepped onto an elevator inside the tower and activated it with a quick push of a button. As he did so, another garbled transmission came over the COM, " _This is Captain Andrew Del Rio to any survivors of the UNSC_ Forward Unto Dawn _, we are approaching your last known location_ …" but the rest faded into static beyond anything he could make out.

"I distinctly heard ' _Forward Unto Dawn_.'" _Del Rio? Mm. I wonder how long it’ll take him to make a mistake_ this _time around._

"They must have intercepted our distress beacon," Cortana said.

The Spartan saw an _immediate_ problem with that. "The beacon was pulled into Requiem with us," he said, "If they try to follow it…"

The AI may have been deteriorating, but she was not slow on the uptake. "…they'll get caught in the gravity well! I'll keep trying to warn them – you just get that beam down."

She didn't need to tell him twice. When the doors opened, he raced to grab the manual shutdown handle. The amount of time since Requiem's construction and the powerful charge from the beam made it difficult for him, but the Spartan was more than equal to the task. As the last of the stay field's purple light faded, the emitter folding down into the tower, his suit's COM systems picked up another transmission from the ship: " _FLEETCOM Actual, we are detecting a faint UNSC signal from somewhere inside the planet._ "

"They haven't hit the gravity well yet." Once the protective panels locked into place over the emitter, John sprinted across them to the portal that opened up beyond.

Cortana was silent for a moment, then said, "There's still too much interference to warn them without taking down that other beam; it’s too strong. What’s _in_ this stay field?"

"Hopefully not the Flood."

" _Amen_. We've got to disable that other beam before the _Infinity_ ’s pulled inside like we were."

The portal dropped them off on the very first platform, looking out over the construct at the core. Another portal opened up opposite the one they had taken to the first beam pylon. As the Chief approached it, a handful of Covenant ships transitioned back to realspace near the core and began making for the second pylon.

"I was wondering why the _Infinity_ hadn't encountered the Covenant yet. But what are they doing _here_? Surely they would have more interest in ships or weapons caches elsewhere on the planet?"

"I don't know. It doesn't make any sense to me either." The Spartan leapt through the portal, took a beat to orient himself, then continued forward. 

The sounds of the Storm Covenant and Prometheans battling it out ahead made him pause. He decided to let them weaken each other before he moved into the fray. "Cortana."

"Yes?"

"I don't know what we’re going to find up there. Whatever it is, it’s caught the Covenant’s attention as well. Are you gonna be good to react on the fly?"

"What other option is there?"

"The one that ends with both of us dead." The sounds of gunfire were winding down. He could hear two Sangheili and at least one Knight still running around, probably with its Watcher. The Spartan tilted his head, indicating he was waiting for a response.

Finally, Cortana said, “I can do it.”

He didn't ask if she was sure.

He left cover. The Sangheili were close enough to one another that he pitched a grenade at their feet, then used the time until detonation to gun for the Watcher. After it fell out of the sky, he whipped back around to the Covenant. Without their shields, two quick headshots were sufficient to put them down. 

The Knight had initially been out of sight, but once the aliens were dead, it came looking for their killer. The Chief scooped up more ammo for his boltshot and charged it fully to knock down the digital being's shields, then momentarily dropped the Forerunner pistol to grab his suppressor and fire at its center of mass until it dissolved in a swirl of golden flakes.

It was much the same all the way to the tower: let the Covenant and Prometheans wear each other down, then come in from behind and clean up the mess, picking up a Ghost along the way to speed up their advance.

The tower itself was held by the Covenant, with only the broken remains of Prometheans to show that there had ever been a fight. John slammed the boost and sent his Ghost darting forward to mow down the Sangheili making a break for a nearby Banshee. The Spartan took the vehicle instead and launched them into the air, evading fire from the other Banshees as he did so. It was an older model, not nearly as maneuverable, but he adjusted quickly and shot down the other Banshees. Then he moved to strafe the troops on the ground and bombed the hell out of the power sources, the hard light barriers flickering out one by one.

John set the Banshee down on the second level of the ramp leading into the tower and sprinted across the light bridges to this tower’s elevator. As he did so, Captain Del Rio came over the COM again, this time as a blurred image, " _UNSC_ Infinity _to Survivor_ Forward Unto Da-a-a-a- _We're reading a faint IFF near the pla-anetary core. Do you read?_ "

"The planet's core?" Cortana repeated, "They know we're here!" She began trying to signal the ship while the Spartan activated the elevator. " _Infinity_ , this is UNSC AI Cortana! Do not approach Forerunner planet! Repeat, do not approach –"

" _UNSC asset_ ," said the captain, "Forward Unto Dawn _, we read you, but you're breaking up._ " He turned to someone off screen, " _Helm, increase speed by point-seven. Get us in there!_ "

"NEGATIVE, _Infinity_! Do not approach the planet!"

Del Rio went on, " _If you can read us, keep transmitting!_ "

"No!" the AI shouted, "Chief, you have to get that beam down _now_!"

When the doors opened, the Spartan ran for the pylon controls and shut it down as fast as he could. As the emitter folded away, Cortana once again attempted to hail the _Infinity_ , but to no avail. "The interference is gone, but your suit's transmitter's not strong enough. It looks like we have no choice."

The Chief nodded in assent. "Move us up to the construct."

"Already done, go!"

The portal he stepped through dropped them back at the main platform once again. He ran as fast as he could for the portal and jumped through. 

Then he stopped dead for an instant, then scrambled for cover. _A Cryptum_ , a Warrior Keep. Again there was the ominous skin-crawling sensation, but there was no time. "How soon until _Infinity_ hits the gravity well?" he demanded as a Phantom swooped overhead and dropped a load of troops in front of him, mostly Grunts.

"A minute or two, max!"

John sniped the Storm Covenant with his new lightrifle as he tore down the ramp. There were doors on either side of the entryway; he picked one and moved through, hugging the innermost edge of the battlefields beyond. The Covenant and the Prometheans were more concerned with each other than him, and so he passed mostly uncontested.

"Chief," said Cortana as he approached the ramp to the interface, "You need to hear this!"

An unfamiliar female voice came over the COM this time: " _Detecting a slight gravimetric disturbance near the planet's opening. Suggest alternate approach vector one seven two k dash one five zero k dash one two k._ "

"They're not diverting from the opening! _Hurry_ , Chief!"

The Spartan dodged a turret and more fire from Prometheans. "Are you ready?!" he shouted over the sound of gunfire.

"Yes!"

He laid his hands on the interfaces and kept a sharp eye on his motion tracker, pushing all other thoughts from his mind. " _Infinity_ ," he said over the COM, "this is Sierra-117 of the UNSC _Forward Unto Dawn_. Do you copy?"

The Cryptum echoed his words back at him, rising and rotating slowly to face him, making him briefly tighten his grip on the interfaces before he let them go. The Spartan drew his weapon once more. "Cortana?"

"I'm sorry – I don't know what –"

"Find us an exit," he interrupted.

"Don't wait around on my account!" 

John vaulted over a low wall and took cover behind it as the Cryptum rose ominously, then released a shockwave that knocked over all of the combatants. The Chief didn't need to look to know what happened next – the Cryptum's plates retracted from the "molten" core, releasing whoever had been locked inside. He tensed, tightened his grip on his weapon when he heard the clicks and clanks of old-style Forerunner armor assembling.

"So fades the great harvest of my betrayal."

The Chief's hair stood on end. “Divines have mercy on us,” he whispered, “The Ur-Didact.”

Then a fresh wave of horror hit. In the Parallel, he had been able to help when the Primordial – the _Gravemind_ – had mind-raped the Promethean commander, but for him to have been imprisoned here, the alien must have had no such aid or, if he _had_ , had refused to accept it.

The Covenant were bowing to the Forerunner even as the Prometheans were reprogrammed to obey their master once more. "Even these beasts," said the Forerunner, "recognize what you were oblivious to, Human. Your nobility has blinded you, as ever."

John felt the wall beginning to give under his shoulder, saw the hard light flake away like a dying Promethean out of the corner of his eye. He shot up and leveled his weapon – only to be snared in a constraint field, against which he had no defense. He writhed in the other's grip, lips curled into a snarl behind his helmet.

The Ur-Didact sneered at him. “The Librarian left little to chance, didn't she? Turning my own guardians – my own world – against me. But what hubris… to believe she could protect her pets from me forever. If you have not even mastered these _beasts_ , then Man has not attained the Mantle. Your ascendance may yet be prevented.

"Time was your ally, human … but now it has abandoned you. The Forerunners… have returned." The panels of his helm curved around his head and connected, articulation points flaring bright. "This tomb… is now yours."

The Promethean threw him away. John automatically tucked to minimize damage, but he was unable to hold in his shout of pain when he hit a support beam, then fell onto and then off of another low wall not unlike the one he'd just been taking cover behind. He groaned and rolled onto his stomach, groping for his gun.

“Chief?!”

The concern in Cortana's slightly warped voice brought him back to himself as much as the charge crackling over his skin did. He didn't think – just reacted, forcing his feet under him and flinging himself under the ramp he'd fallen next to, throwing his arms up over his head, hands folding over the slot where Cortana's chip jacked into his helmet.

And then the second, much stronger shockwave rendered him unconscious.

* * *

Again, it was Cortana's voice that brought him back. "Chief, _please_ ," she whimpered, "We've gotta go! That - _Didact_ , he manipulated Infinity's signal to get us to release him! Get up!"

John shook his head, and forced himself back to his feet, staggering a little and wincing when a cracked bone shifted. The suit’s medical systems weren't doing as much for him as he’d hoped. "What's happening?" he demanded.

"Moving the satellite to Slipspace destabilized the core!" the panicked AI reported.

Two Phantoms, caught up in the powerful quantum currents, collided overhead, then crashed nearby, close enough for him to feel the wash of heat through his armor. He reflexively shielded himself from the impact, again curling his hands over his head to protect Cortana's chip.

"The Didact's leaving!" she shouted, "We have to find a way out of here before the whole network collapses!"

John snatched up his rifle and nearly threw it onto his back panels, then raced toward the crash site. If there was something, _anything_ -

The crashed Phantoms had dropped their cargo of Ghosts when they collided. He picked the one that was in the best repair, jumped on it, and took off. The Spartan felt the kick when the Ghost's boost began receiving power from his shields, but other than that, he remained entirely focused on speeding through the collapsing core, his instincts screaming at him to move, to get away as fast as possible. 

The sudden drops and random spurs of rock shooting up in front of him played havoc with his ability to control the Ghost, but at last, he saw the swirling, blue-edged darkness of a portal up ahead and aimed his vehicle for it, accelerating as fast as he could go. They entered it with only a little time to spare, the now-welcome juddering chaos feeling like a saving grace.

_I see you, Reclaimer._

They emerged in bright sunlight, but there was no time to bask in the freedom of it. They had arrived on a cliff edge, aimed off of it. John swung the Ghost to one side, then leapt off of it, transferring as much of his momentum to it as he possibly could. He was successful – he and Cortana came skidding to a stop at the very edge of the cliff. The damaged Ghost went flying off and exploded as it fell.

"Chief, there!"

John looked up. The _Infinity_ broke through a bank of clouds, electricity arcing along the length of the ship. " _Mayday, Mayday!_ " came over the COM, " _This is the captain of the UNSC_ Infinity _! We're without power, on a collision course with an unidentified Forerunner planet!_ "

The Spartan turned to follow it as the ship roared overhead. "Track its descent."

"Marking," Cortana responded, "Impact predicted seventy-seven-point-eight kilometers due north."

His skin crawled in warning, right before he heard the hum of the Didact's Cryptum behind them. Instinct took over; he pulled out his gun and whirled to face the Forerunner machine, but it ignored him entirely. It scanned the area and zipped off after the _Infinity_ at the command of the Didact.

"You _know_ where he's headed."

"Same place we are." John said, then started walking.

* * *

The rainforest the _Infinity_ had crashed in was as all rainforests were: thick, green, and wet. It reminded him of Earth, fighting his way to the extraction point after jumping from the _Anodyne Spirit_ and landing on Earth. 

The Spartan could see the occasional billow of fog settled in hollows in the ground. The moisture slicked his armor, made it gleam in the sunlight that filtered through the canopy. He jumped off the fallen log that he had been using as a bridge and kept walking forward, his suppressor at the ready.

"Stay low," Cortana warned, "Recon sortie heading this way."

He dropped into a crouch, ducking his head as two Phantoms full of troops flew by above him, accompanied by Banshee escorts. They were moving to support the Didact, no doubt; the Forerunner Cryptum was scanning the UNSC ship and probably hacking its systems, too. 

"The ship looks intact," the AI reported.

"Something tells me that's only because the Didact wanted it that way," John replied. He would have said more, but another voice came over the COM.

" _This is Lasky to UNSC_ Infinity _! We're up to our necks in bad guys down here! Does anyone read?!"_

"This is Sierra-117 of the UNSC _Forward Unto Dawn_ ," the Chief answered, "We're on-station, ready to assist."

" _Negative copy,"_ was the staticky reply, _"Sounded like you said_ Forward Unto Dawn _? Come again-"_ But then the signal faded.

"Signal's bouncing in and out; I can't clean it up," Cortana reported.

John nodded in acknowledgement. "Light up their friend-or-foe tags," he told her, "We're gonna need something to zero in on." The Spartan waited patiently for her results, staying crouched to avoid additional Phantoms and Banshees that flew overhead.

After a moment, she said, "I'm seeing multiple IFF tags below the tree line. Painting the closest one on your HUD." The AI put up an objective point about two hundred meters away.

The Spartan straightened and moved toward it. As he did so, the voice of the captain came over the COM: _"_ Infinity _to Commander Lasky, we've lost contact with your Pelicans! Report in!"_

"They must not have received his distress call," John said quietly as he dropped off another ledge. He skirted the edges of a couple of sunny clearings, then crept through a narrow tunnel in the foliage. A handful of enemy contacts appeared on his motion tracker – a trio of Knights in the midst of a squad of dead Marines. They portaled away before he could engage them. John clenched his teeth, then asked, "Lasky?"

"One of them's an officer," Cortana supplied, "Check his IFF tag." When the Spartan activated it, she quickly read the data and said, "The tag IDs him as Jiminez, Paolo J."

"Then Lasky's still out there somewhere." He pocketed their dog tags and kept moving.

The Knights hadn't fled very far, but they _had_ called in reinforcements: a small flurry of Crawlers. The Spartan had picked up a DMR from the dead Marines, and began picking the Prometheans off one by one. One of the Knights roared and released its Watcher, which zipped over to begin reconstituting one of the Knights he had already destroyed. The Chief shot it out of the sky, then destroyed its Knight as well. He mowed through another clutch of Crawlers, coming across another familiar weapon in the process: a binary rifle. He left his suppressor behind in favor of it; he could always pick up another one.

He rounded a corner just in time to see the squad’s last Marine detonate a grenade and take out the last Knight, which had impaled him on its blade arm. The Spartan immediately moved in, noting the rest of the soldiers lying dead in the muck. He sighed and collected their dog tags, keeping an eye on his motion tracker; there had to be other Prometheans nearby. 

John was about to move on and engage the other digital beings when Cortana piped up. "Wait! What was that he dropped on the ground over there?"

He picked it up. It was a Promethean Vision module; he and his Infected had used them during the Forerunner-Flood War in places thick with fog and spores, on the rare occasions they actually infiltrated Flood-infested planets. He activated it and lifted his DMR as he approached a low cliff.

One of the Prometheans spotted him and began firing. He fired back, taking out the Crawler with a headshot. Then he moved on to the others, staying low to avoid the lone Knight's autosentry. After its battery ran out, the Spartan gunned the Knight down and hopped off the ledge.

There were more Prometheans portaling in, blocking the path up out of the foggy hollow. His DMR out of ammo, John traded it out for the suppressor one of the Alpha Crawlers had left behind. He unloaded an entire clip into the Knight leading the charge, not wanting to waste the ammo in his binary rifle. That one clip was enough to break the Knight apart, and he took cover to reload. The Crawlers with it charged him. He beat them back, took them apart, and kept moving through the rainforest. 

"We've got another IFF on the far side of this thicket," Cortana told him as the ground leveled off. The Spartan pushed through the foliage and went to one knee next to the corpse of another Marine.

Lasky's voice came over the playback. _"We should get eyes out there, looking for the others."_

A strong female voice affirmed his orders. _"Peters, you heard Commander Lasky."_

Peters' voice was last. _"CFB, ma'am. Bulldogs! On me! We're going for a walk."_

"Lasky's been through here, recently by the timestamp," Cortana said.

There were still more Prometheans around the bend; just Crawlers this time. John kept moving, falling into the rhythm of the skirmishes. More often than not, the Prometheans would stay still when shooting, and their targeting systems seemed to have trouble locking on to singular moving targets. The Chief didn't have that problem, and dodged around while firing, even darting out of the way just in time to knife a Lancer that charged him.

"I've got another IFF tag," the AI informed him as he walked on, "but as far as I can tell, we're moving into a choke point. This may end up as a dead end."

John nodded quickly in acknowledgement and began climbing up some half-rotted fallen tree limbs that formed a ramp upwards. There were _still more_ Crawlers waiting for him, but in the tight quarters of the short spiral formed by the wood, it was harder to destroy them, the trunks impeding his view as much as they protected him from enemy fire.

Finally, he stepped off onto a Forerunner structure, nearly overgrown by the jungle. Its door was sealed tight, and there were a few crates of UNSC gear scattered nearby. "There's the friend or foe tag," Cortana pointed out, and objective point appearing over it, "but where's whoever it belongs to?" The transmission that played back implied that Lasky and his men had come under heavy fire and taken cover inside the relay station. In confirmation, Cortana marked movement on the far side of the door. "Multiple IDs! Chief, they're friendlies!"

He lowered his weapon right before the door hissed open. Three soldiers in armor not unlike his own emerged and swept the area for hostiles. John turned his head to follow the closest one, recognizing them as S-IVs, then looked back at the approaching officer. "Afraid we're gonna have to give you an IOU on that welcome home party," he said, extending a hand before John could salute, "Tom Lasky, First Officer of the _Infinity_." They shook. "Never thought I'd see you again."

Tom Lasky – now the name was familiar. The same terrified little cadet who had acted as live bait for a Hunter? Huh. Stranger things had happened, he supposed, briefly thinking of the Parallel.

A helmetless Spartan moved in close, looked him over. Female, auburn hair, and inch shorter than him out of armor. He recognized her - Sarah Palmer - and it took everything he had not to say _where is your helmet Sarah we trained you better than that_. Things were different here. He stayed silent, and didn't comment when she grinned and said, "I thought you'd be taller.”

The Chief raised an unimpressed eyebrow behind his visor. A radio transmission cut off anything he might have said, pulling their attention away. Del Rio was on the air; _"…ground forces are ordered to return to_ Infinity _immediately!"_

The Marine waved them over. "Commander! Radio's hot!"

"You don't _fucking_ say," John muttered under his breath, and heard Cortana giggle in his ear as he followed the S-IVs inside.

"… _respond to COM…_ " the captain was saying, _"…on what frequency?_ What frequency _, dammit?!"_

Lasky went to one knee next to the radio. " _Infinity_ , this is Commander Lasky," he said urgently, "Pelican recon teams are down, repeat, all birds are down. We've got numerous casualties and require immediate assistance, over."

"Finally _,"_ the captain responded. The arrogance in his tone made John narrow his eyes. _"Did you get the coordinates for that gravity well?"_

"Affirmative, sir," Lasky answered, "but we're gonna need a bus out of here!"

" _Make it_ happen _!"_ He snapped off.

The Chief scowled. He’d never actually met the man in the Parallel, and now he was glad of it but also wished the trend had continued. _This_ was how Del Rio treated the men under his command? He'd never spoken that way to any of his subordinates without being under a hundred times more stress and far further behind enemy lines. The Infected had been able to tell that there had been no real venom behind the words, that he actually hadn't meant them. And he had _never_ snarled at Nethalia or Cortana like that.

Lasky seemed equally dismayed.

_"You were sent on a scouting run in the middle of an attack on the ship?"_ Cortana said incredulously over his armor's external speakers.

"The captain thought _Infinity_ could provide us cover and hold off the attack at the same time."

Palmer approached the other officer. "Sir," she said quietly, "We're never gonna get the wounded back to the ship on foot."

Lasky exhaled through his nose, silently agreeing. 

John briefly twitched an eyebrow upward behind his visor, exchanging a glance with Cortana. The Spartan-II shifted his weight, the slight noise of his armor bringing the officer's attention back to him. He could see the realization flash across the man's face the moment he remembered who he now had at his disposal. "I don't know if it's too soon to ask you for a favor, but…" Lasky said, standing up and taking a few steps closer, "we're gonna run out of breathing room here real quick. I don't suppose you're any good at clearing LZs?"

"On occasion," the Chief responded, "We'll send out an all-clear once the area is secured."

One of the other S-IVs escorted him through the facility where they had taken cover. It was a simple relay station and maintenance node for the power grid, but it was also connected to Requiem's information network. If he still had his Flood-based abilities…

But no. He'd retained some faint sensory ability, that was true, but a direct interface with machinery was well beyond him, something he sorely missed.

As the S-II emerged from the facility, Cortana spoke up. "A topographical scan of the area shows a break in the foliage north of here," she informed him, "Should be big enough to bring in a dropship for evac."

More of the Didact's soldiers were there waiting for them when they stepped out into the open. The Chief used two of his precious rounds in the binary rifle to take out the Knight Lancers before they could charge or release their Watchers, then switched back to his suppressor to deal with the Crawlers.

As he continued toward the LZ, John passed a radio that had been left behind during the retreat to the relay station, just in time to hear someone shout, _"_ Infinity _'s being overrun!"_

" _The ship's as big as a city! How's it being overrun?!"_

Most of the _Fleet of Shadows_ ' ships had been "as big as a city," too, and faced longer odds than the _Infinity_ without being overrun by the enemy Flood. They had spent entire _decades_ behind enemy lines in Flood-controlled territory. The Spartan’s eyes narrowed again. Poor decisions were being made somewhere, and it didn’t exactly take any great leaps of logic for him to guess who was behind them.

His motion tracker showed contacts around the bend where the path he'd been following passed between two fallen trees. There was no cover there, forcing him to fire on the Prometheans beyond while trying to dodge in the tight space. The Marines with him fell back to let him handle the heavy lifting, but the instant the least of the digital beings broke apart, they were charging after him through the narrow pass.

As they exited the sniper alley, the Chief spotted some more Marines under fire nearby. Just then Lasky came over the COM. _"Chief, it's Lasky. We're getting reports of friendlies pinned down near your position. Can you assist?"_

The S-II moved forward to fire on the Crawlers and Watchers preventing them from advancing, leaving Cortana to respond with, "Commander, this is Cortana. We're on our way." She seemed to be keeping it together rather well, all things considered. To be fair, she said she’d gone back to a _partial_ Riemann matrix, which seemed to have bought her a little more time.

John moved to join the Marines when all the hostiles were dead, smirking a little at the shocked murmurs of the other soldiers.

"Who's that?"

"What. The. What?"

"Holy mother of…"

"I thought he was dead."

A handful of Knights teleported in further up the slope ahead, together with their entourage. The Chief was not eager to find out exactly what the Watchers were materializing, but he only managed to shoot down one before it finished the job. He heard the familiar whine of a charging turret, saw the red-orange-gold glow out of the corner of his eye, and rolled backwards out of the way as it fired. The S-II focused on the turret and the Knights, leaving the Crawlers to the Marines. When the coast was clear, they all advanced up the slope. 

There were a handful of bodies under and overhang with a tightly sealed door set into the wall. "The Marines got trapped trying to get through the doors," said Cortana, "Look for an interface." The Spartan was already making for the console by the door and slotted her in. " _These doors open up into a cave system with a space large enough for an LZ,_ " the AI reported, her avatar shrinking to a sphere of code, " _Hold them off long enough for me to open the doors!_ "

As she finished speaking, more Prometheans portaled in. John briefly lost track of time, wave after wave of Prometheans charging up the rise to attack them. When he finally had a moment to breathe, he asked, "Cortana, how close are we?"

_"YOU-U DO YOUR-R JO-O-OB AND I'LL DO MINE, O-OKAY!?"_

The Chief flinched a little at the rampant shout, but there was no time for him to respond. Another wave of Prometheans threw themselves at the hill, and he and the surviving Marines moved to defend. When the last Knight broke apart with a crunch, Cortana spoke up. _"Got it!"_ she called, _"Passageway's unlocked. Come and get me!"_

John jogged over to the console and pulled her from it, slotting her back into his helmet without hesitation. Indeed, the door opened at his approach, and sealed behind them, cutting off the pursuit of _still more_ Prometheans. The pink-violet-blue distortion of his HUD appeared again before Cortana spoke. "Sorry about back there," she said softly, "That hatch's security was more difficult than I expected."

"It's alright."

"It's _not_ alright," she hissed, " _Nothing_ about it is alright."

"Cortana," he said gently, stopping his advance and dropping to one knee so he could focus entirely on her. When he was sure he had her attention, he continued, "Shout at me all you want – it lets me know you're still alive. As long as you're still alive, there's still time."

The AI's gaze softened. "Oh, John."

They continued down the passageway made of tree roots and stone. Vines dangled down from the arches overhead and dragged wetly against his armor as he passed, making him shine in the shafts of sunlight. The tunnel eventually opened up into a larger cavern, but blocking their way was -

"Knight! Wait, what's he doing?!"

\- a Lancer very distinctly directing some Storm Covenant to take up positions around the cavern. The Spartan's light rifle was not nearly as effective as his binary rifle, which he had been forced to abandon when he ran out of ammunition for it. It worked perfectly well against the Unggoy and Kig Yar, however.

The Knight reappeared on the other side of the cavern, and brought a friend with it. They fired on him and forced him to retreat, providing cover for the Phantom that swooped in to drop another wave of troops. Two more Knights portaled in – "Battlewagons", going by the distinctive crystalline spines. Primarily close range combatants, they were already bouncing over toward him in their own insect-like way.

His suppressor now out of ammo, the Spartan laid hands on a weapon his HUD ID'd as a railgun. He charged the weapon, fired – and watched with wide eyes and raised eyebrows as a Jackal and all three of the Grunts went flying. " _Ooh_. I think I'm going to like this one."

“Is that so?” Cortana laughed.

John grinned and brought the railgun to bear on the Knights. A few minutes more, and Cortana got on the horn with the Commander. "Cortana to Lasky. LZ is secured."

" _Roger that, Cortana,"_ he answered, _"I'll get you the coordinates for the-"_

" _Mayday, Mayday, Code Red!"_ Del Rio, on all local channels. _"Hostile elements attempting to gain access to the_ Infinity _bridge!"_

" _They're outside the hatch!"_ someone shouted in the background. Then, " _Doors breached! Doors breached!"_

Del Rio came back on. _"All units return to_ Infinity _immediately! That's an order!"_

To his credit, Lasky didn't hesitate _. "Chief, I'm redirecting the SPARTAN-IVs to rally point Alpha Sierra Foxtrot. Until we catch up, you have tactical command of the forward assault force! Rendezvous with those men and take back that ship!"_

"Yes, sir."

" _Good luck, Chief. Lasky out."_

Their Pelican swooped in through one of the openings in the cave wall and swung around so the Spartan and AI could board. They ascended the ramp, hearing the pilot say, _"This is Pelican Five Nine Five. We have the Chief on board and are outbound for rally point Alpha Sierra Foxtrot."_

* * *

The transport dropped them off right alongside the _Infinity_ , smoking faintly amidst the wreckage of both ship and forest. Several squads of S-IVs were already engaging the Covenant pushing through the damaged parts of the ship. "Weapons free, Chief," said Cortana, "Let 'em have it!"

The S-II did exactly that and gunned down all the aliens he could see. Then he noticed the Scorpion tank sitting nearby, unmanned. When all of the Covenant in range of his guns were dead, he made for it and climbed in. Cortana ran a quick diagnostic after he turned it on, then told him, "We're good to go, Chief. Let's show these _Spartans_ how it's done."

John allowed a small smile to pull his lips up. "Just the two of us against the rest of the world, huh?"

“Always,” Cortana said, soft, fond, and he smiled unrestrained.

A squad of IVs hopped up onto the side panels of the tank to provide close range cover. When they were all settled, the tank started forward. Two Ghosts came forward to challenge them, but the Chief just blasted them apart. As the group passed under a thick arch of stone, John's radio crackled. _"117, Lasky. We're touching down just north of your position. Proceed to starboard hangar two-dash-one-nine, and we'll link up with you there."_

John flashed an acknowledgement and kept moving, shifting the tank aside so the much-faster Warthog could race by and take the lead. The passageway widened after a bit, letting the S-IVs manning the LRV take advantage of its speed and maneuverability, but there were also a lot more enemies in the more open space. The S-II spotted a Wraith in the shadows and brought their main gun around. Two rounds, one right after the other, put it out of commission. He moved on to the Ghosts, letting the S-IVs handle the infantry.

On the journey to the hangar, the Chief noticed that the Spartan-IVs were more like Marines than the S-IIs. Even his Infected conducted themselves more professionally on the battlefield, though _off_ of it was another story. They didn't waste ammo on enemies that were clearly already dead. They didn't jeer at one another about their shooting skills or challenge one another to contests in the middle of battle. The S-IVs had skills, yes, and were necessary now that there were only a handful of S-IIs still on active duty, but whoever was in charge of their training left a lot to be desired. The prestige of their predecessors would only get them so far.

Despite that, the squad reached the designated hangar with no casualties and only a few injuries, brought about when a Wraith bomb flipped the Warthog. "Commander," the AI said over the COM, "the hangar bay doors look sealed tight."

" _Roger, Cortana_ ," Lasky responded, _"We'll find a way inside and free up one of the mooring platforms. XO out."_

John blasted the Covenant vehicles harrying the ship's defenders and steered the tank onto a tight lift. After a minute or so of waiting, he heard the grind of metal on metal, and the lift carried them up into the ship. 

There were Covenant inside the bay, including two Hunters. The S-II swung the gun around again, and if more Storm Covenant happened to die with them, so much the better. Still, he was careful not to do too much damage to the ship.

The Chief dismounted from the tank. As he did so, his radio crackled yet again. _"John-117, this is Captain Del Rio."_ He said it slowly and clearly and in a tone that set the Spartan off. But he stayed quiet as the captain continued, _"Lasky just radioed. Chief, you picked a helluva time to rejoin us."_

"Sir, what's our status?" 

" _That satellite took down the ship's defenses and is extracting data from the ship's mainframe as we speak."_

"Can we break the connection?" If he could get Cortana into _Infinity_ ’s systems, she could encrypt and offload data to ease the burden on her subroutines, but he wasn’t going to do that if it wasn't safe for her.

" _Main point of contact is on the ship's upper hull. The fastest route is through the maintenance causeway. There's a Mantis docked inside the door. Take it; you'll need the extra firepower."_

A nearby hatch clicked and ground open almost painfully. John headed up the ramp to the docking platform, where he tapped the panel to raise it. The platform settled, and he climbed up the back of the Mantis to hop into the cockpit. The Spartan took a moment to acquaint himself with the controls while it warmed up.

"The hatch to the maintenance causeway is jammed," Cortana informed him, "Let's do something about it."

The Spartan charged all of the rockets in the left pod and launched them one right after the other, then switched to the chain gun in the right pod. The hatch finally burst open, letting them head into the causeway.

There were more enemies there, Prometheans and Covenant alike, because of course there were. The ship's systems continued giving the crew alerts as they cleared the causeway and stepped onto a lift that Cortana said would take them topside. The AI remotely triggered the lift, and as they began their ascent, his radio crackled _yet again_. _"Chief, it's Lasky. Come in!"_

"Go, Commander."

" _We've identified several Covenant jamming devices on the outer hull."_

"That must be how they're blocking the _Infinity_ 's defenses," said Cortana.

" _Exactly what we were thinking,"_ Lasky agreed, " _Neutralize them so we can get our guns back online and show that satellite we're more than just a big paperweight."_

"We're on it, Commander. Cortana out."

The lift let them out into a short hallway. The airlock at the end opened at their approach, but only for a moment; it seemed that one of the bridge crew overrode the normal decompression procedure. 

The MAC cannons sat inoperable on their mounts, unable to return fire on the CCS-class battlecruisers in the distance, floating on either side of the Didact’s Cryptum. 

"I see the jammers," the AI reported, "Three of them. Shoot them down." She put objective markers on them. When the last one exploded, the AA guns perked up and began firing on the Banshees and Phantoms that were swooping overhead. The MAC gun didn't move.

" _Del Rio to John-117. The rate that thing's searching our systems just doubled! I think it knows what you're up to."_

Banshees swooped in to harry him. He shot them apart, one right after the other, then helped one of the anti-air batteries destroy a Phantom before it could drop off its load of troops.

" _Captain Del Rio to Sierra-117. The MAC network's reading operational, but our EM relays are malfunctioning. You'll have to initiate the link manually."_

The Spartan guided his Mantis over to the panel and hopped out once the coast was clear. The manual restore was simple enough to do: a simple push of a button to reset the system. "That's it!" said Cortana, "MAC controls restored!"

" _Forward MAC batteries, get that damn orb away from my ship!"_ Del Rio shouted, _"All cannons, fire at will!"_

The slugs from all of the _Infinity_ 's forward guns hit the Cryptum hard; John heard the reports echoing off the surrounding rock faces, making him flinch a little at each one. His flesh crawled at memories of orbital bombardments in quarantine zones, people screaming as their planets burned.

At last the Cryptum retreated, but privately John doubted it because of the _Infinity_ ’s fire; the Cryptum hadn't taken so much as a scratch. More than likely, the Didact had gotten what he wanted from them.

* * *

"What I want to know, people, is: where the hell did those things come from?" Del Rio demanded of the officers and Spartans gathered on the bridge.

Cortana shot a glance at her Spartan, saw his minute shake. Then she said, "It's possible that they're native to Requiem, or whatever counts as native for a Forerunner AI."

Del Rio exhaled sharply through his nose. "We've never seen this kind of offensive reaction from any of the other installations."

"'Other installations?'" the Chief repeated, praying that ONI hadn't been stupid enough to break quarantine on the Halos as they had seen in the Parallel.

"Mr. Lasky," the captain growled in the direction of his first officer.

The XO stepped up to the holotable. " _Infinit_ y's mission has been to locate the remaining Halo rings," he said, bringing up a holographic example that rotated slowly at an angle, "and establish permanent bases to study them for decommission. We've got locations up and running around Installations Five and Three," and there he brought up an example of a base in an asteroid field of some kind, "but lately they've run into some setbacks."

Del Rio seemed to think Lasky was being too slow and decided to move things along. "A science team got zapped excavating a Forerunner artifact," he said, "This sensor data is all that was left."

The Spartan tensed and drew himself up. One of the many things he had wanted to avoid had happened anyway – ONI had a Composer. What the captain had pulled up was directions to Requiem, where the Promethean Knights were built, the Didact's sigil at the core.

_I have to get it away from them._

John looked up, realizing that Del Rio was speaking again. He responded automatically, knowing that letting the Didact loose into the galaxy was a terrible idea, but with the UNSC, the Spartan had no power to override Del Rio's orders.

'I miss my fleet.'


	4. Three: For Love’s Sake

Cortana waited until he’d secured their quarters and subtly disrupted his helmetcam’s recorder before she spoke. “What’s this _Composer_ the data mentioned? You never said anything about it before.”

“Because I had them destroyed,” he answered, briefly testing the bed to make sure it could hold his weight before lying down on it. Then he looked up at her. “The Forerunners intended to use them for a lot of things, but the most relevant is that it was used to capture the essences of people infected by the Flood, then imprint them in clean flesh.”

“I take it that it didn't work. We would have heard about it if it had.”

“Correct. It… it was _worse_ than a failure.” He shook his head a little, gaze going distant. “I saw it used once… Like the Forerunner-Flood War, that memory will never leave me. It was…” He shuddered.

Cortana laid down on the holopanel as if she was doing so next to him, and he reached out to rest a hand on the edge, careful not to block the emitter, expression flat but eyes full of sympathetic pain. She reached back, her immaterial hand resting on his solid one. “The Didact killed the _Infinity_ ’s onboard AI,” she said quietly, “While we were on the bridge, I managed to send out a message on the usual channels, but I don't know when or even _if_ we’ll get a response, or what we should do if it does or _doesn't_ come.”

He met her gaze with calm determination. “Whatever it takes.”

* * *

 _“_ Infinity _to Gypsy Company…”_

John opened his eyes when the holoprojector flickered on, the image of Del Rio appearing in the Pelican’s troop bay. He pushed himself up off the hull of the Pelican and stood in silence as the officer briefed them.

 _“The air corridor to the gravity well is blocked by a network of particle cannons,”_ said the man, standing at parade rest, _“_ Infinity _’s shields are still down. Open the lane for us to move up and provide air support.”_

Was that all the intel the man was going to give them? There _had_ to be more than that. “Captain, what’s Force Recon’s assessment of the terrain?” John asked.

The man gave him a nasty look, making him raise his eyebrows behind his visor. _“I know you’ve been out of the field for a while, Master Chief,”_ he said derisively, his tone making some of the Marines shift uncomfortably, _“but this is a_ blow-though _op. Sending in recon would just slow us down.”_

Taking additional time to minimize casualties - and repair the shields - was being “slowed down”? The Spartan exchanged a look with the AI when she opened a vidscreen on his HUD.

An holo of one of the particle cannons appeared in front of the officer. The Spartan recognized it - a Z-8060. The _Fleet_ used them on occasion, as stationary, close-range defense. Over time, though, theirs had been strengthened and streamlined compared to Requiem.

 _“Telemetry indicates that the particle cannons are being controlled from a command post southwest of our position,”_ Del Rio continued, _“Roll on that target, and neutralize those guns. We’ll meet on the other side and take out the gravity well.”_ He shot one last ugly look the Spartan’s way, then growled, _“_ Infinity _out.”_

The hologram flickered off. Cortana hummed, then said in the Common Tongue of the Ecumene, _“Divines, throw some brains from the heavens.”_

 _“Or stones, as long as they hit the mark,”_ the Spartan added and stepped forward as the Pelican came in to land in the canyons leading to the particle canyons. For a moment he thought they were going to have to make their way to the command post on foot. Then he headed towards the tunnel ahead of him, guarded by two Marines who saluted as he approached. He returned the gesture and kept walking.

His radio crackled. _“Chief, Spartan Sarah Palmer in_ Infinity _CIC. Commander Lasky’s waiting for you on the Mammoth.”_

The Spartan raised an eyebrow. What the hell was a Mammoth? “On our way.” Both eyebrows went up when he exited the tunnel.

“ _Well_ ,” said Cortana, sounding just as surprised as he was, “ _someone’s_ overcompensating.”

As its name indicated, the Mammoth was _mammoth_. A single tire alone was two, maybe three times his height and easily eight times his weight while he was _in armor_ , and the vehicle had more than a dozen. The actual body resting on those tires was even larger. It was effectively a mobile command station, though he didn’t think it would actually move very fast.

The Spartan boarded. Lasky _was_ waiting for them on the uppermost deck. “Chief, Cortana,” he nodded to them, “Unfortunately for us, we’ve got to manually bring down a couple of particle cannons before we can get to the command post.”

_“Chief, Palmer again. The Mammoth’s got jetpacks onboard. If I were down there, I’d want one.”_

Cortana set a nav point, and her Spartan followed it to a storage rack. It was fairly intuitive, so he had it hooked up in a heartbeat. 

This time it was Del Rio who came over the radio. _“Gypsy Company, this is Captain Del Rio; the board is green. Let’s shut down that gravity well so we can go home._ Infinity _out.”_

Lasky was right behind him. _“Okay, Gypsy, time to work for it. Let’s shake some dirt.”_

The Mammoth started to move, rolling out of a short canyon and onto a narrow path on the edge of a sheer cliff. Three Pelicans joined them, flying slightly ahead of the Mammoth but otherwise keeping pace. Palmer reported in on it. _“Captain Del Rio, targeting Pelicans are in position near the particle cannons; waiting for the Mammoth’s mini-MAC to take them out.”_ Then, as the Pelicans rounded the bend up ahead, _“Seven-six-six, lose some altitude; you’re inside the kill box!”_

 _“Almost got target lock,”_ was the earnest reply _, “Just a little more…”_

The Mammoth rounded the bend, finally getting line of sight on the first particle cannon. As it came into view, its targeting sensors locked on to the foremost Pelican, and the cannon itself started charging.

 _“Pelican,_ fall back! _”_

The cannon fired and incinerated the two trailing Pelicans instantly. The one that actually tripped the sensors received only a glancing blow and went down somewhere ahead of them. “Infinity, _Pelicans down!”_ Lasky shouted.

 _“Get to the crash site and retrieve that target designator, Gypsy,”_ the captain ordered, _“You’ve got no chance of clearing those guns without it.”_

When he snapped off, Lasky followed once more. _“All teams, we’ve got Covenant squads digging in up on the ridgeline. Weapons free, people!”_

John jumped onto one of the rocket turrets and began launching salvos at the aliens, a squad of S-IVs assisting, and the Mammoth slowed to help their aim. When the last of the aliens fell, they sped up once more, and rolled to a halt near the crash site.

 _“There’s Gypsy Seven’s Pelican out in the muck,”_ said Palmer, _“Anyone still alive?”_

 _“We’re here,”_ was the reply, _“We’re alive! We’ve got the target designator!”_

“We’ll get to them and retrieve the target designator,” John said, already descending. There were some Warthogs inside the Mammoth that he could take to reach them faster, and the LAAGs would provide good cover fire.

When they saw him approaching, some of the S-IVs mounted up to join him, and he jumped in the driver’s seat to send them out.

What seemed like a dozen Phantoms were dropping off troops, Ghosts, and even a Wraith between them and the crashed Pelican. It took both of the LAAGs just straight emptying rounds into the Wraith to destroy it, but once it was down, they started taking care of the Ghosts while the S-II ran down the infantry. Finally, he was able to jump down and scoop up the designator.

“Target those Phantoms for the rail gun to shoot down,” Cortana suggested. The ships were weaving through the air, but he marked one without too much difficulty. His luck made itself known once again, because there were two Phantoms close enough together that when the mini-MAC fired, both were destroyed.

While the rail gun was reloaded, the Spartan escorted Gypsy Seven’s survivors to the Mammoth, then climbed to the uppermost level to mark the particle cannon.

It, too, exploded. _“Target suppressed,”_ said Lasky, _“Nicely done, Chief.”_

‘If I was still what I used to be, we wouldn’t have needed to destroy it,’ John thought as the Mammoth started to roll again, ‘Cortana and I could have taken control of the entire planet, turned it on the Didact - but it does no good to dwell on what might have been. All that matters is what _is_.’

 _“Lasky to_ Infinity _, first contact cleared by no joy on additional targets. Gypsy moving on to secondary battle position but requesting evac for casualties.”_

_“I’m on it, Commander. Palmer, out.”_

The Mammoth kept rolling. More Phantoms and a squad of Banshees swooped out of cover to shoot at them, but a few salvos of rockets sent them running. 

Then they reached the barrier. “Force field,” Cortana reported, some small distortions in her voice, “barricading the far side of this canyon. I’m seeing three power sources. Shut them down so the Mammoth can move through.”

John flashed an acknowledgement on his HUD and dropped to ground level, creeping forward to scope out the situation. There were a few Ghosts patrolling the area, together with a bit over a dozen infantry, with a Shade turret overseeing it all. The Spartan’s eyes narrowed, and he looked back at the Mammoth.

The rocket turret on the port side was close enough to get a target lock on one of the Ghosts, then the other when it came to investigate the destruction of the first. Clearing them out made it safer for him to head down again and finish off the infantry, then destroy the first generator. But as he headed for the second, he spotted the Wraith. He looked back at the Mammoth, which rolled up to the barrier.

“Really? Again?” Cortana said after the second generator went the way of the first and he boosted himself back onto the Mammoth.

“I’m taking advantage of available resources.”

“Is that what we’re calling it now?”

The Wraith wasn't in range at first, but when the Spartan fired on the infantry, it glided closer to try to get him inside its own range. A few salvos were sufficient to destroy it, and the Covenant tower with it. Then he jumped down again to destroy the final generator.

“I really like these jetpacks,” he said as they returned to the Mammoth, “Shame they don't come built-in.”

“That sounds like an accident waiting to happen, especially with _you_.”

“Eh, maybe a little.” 

He marked the second particle cannon. After a moment, Lasky said, _“Shot’s good! - Wait. All units! Unidentified Covenant vehicle incoming!”_

The Covenant ship fired on the Mammoth, shorting out almost everything, but the side turrets were still operational. The Spartan destroyed every Covenant vehicle the Phantoms dropped off, killed every alien that drew the short straw and disembarked from the “Lich”, settling in over the rise nearby, “I like this idea of yours now,” said Cortana as an Elite went flying.

“It _is_ one of my better ones. And the captain didn't skimp on the ammo for the Mammoth, so we can afford to burn a few rounds.”

Unfortunately the rockets weren't enough to penetrate the Lich’s armor, which meant boarding it the old-fashioned way and destroying it from the inside. “You’d think the Covenant would have learned by now,” John commented as the gravity lift carried them up into the ship.

“You’d think, but apparently not.”

The Spartan fought his way through the crew of the Lich, but after a certain point he didn't even bother with his gun, instead throwing, tripping, or otherwise pitching the aliens out through the open sides of the ship. It was only when he kicked the last of the Sangheili out that he pulled out his gun again and headed for the power core. At full strength, the butt of the rifle was enough to destroy the shield protecting the core, and a single plasma grenade did the rest.

He threw himself out the side of the Lich and triggered his jetpack to control his fall, landing atop the mini-MAC with a solid thump.

 _“Thanks, Chief,”_ said Lasky, _“It was getting a bit dicey there for a minute.”_ He paused a moment while the Lich exploded in a flare of blue-white light, very like the Scarabs. _“All hands, form up on us.”_

The S-IVs returned to the Mammoth. As they did so, Del Rio came on. _“Lasky, this is_ Infinity _. Status.”_

_“Mammoth’s in pretty bad shape, sir. She’ll make it to the objective, as long as nobody starts throwing rocks at us.”_

_“Not a chance we can take,”_ the CO snapped back, _“I’m sending teams out to pull some of their fire off you so you can make it to the gravity well.”_

_“Roger that, sir. Gypsy, let’s move.”_

John went to one knee on top of the Mammoth, listening with only half an ear as the captain deployed more teams of S-IVs. He was more intent on examining the surrounding terrain, especially given that Force Recon hadn't been sent out to scout for them. Right now it was pretty calm, only the path and a few waterfalls spilling over it into the gorge below, but he stayed vigilant.

He didn't miss Cortana’s slip, however. “They _don't_ care about you - they _replaced_ you!” one personality spike snarled before she got control of it again. “Blast it!”

“It’s okay,” the Spartan said gently.

“ _How?_ ” she demanded, appearing in a vidscreen on his HUD, a bit of distortion coming through again, “How is this _okay_? How is putting you at risk because I can’t keep it together _okay_?”

“You’re still here. Everything else I can handle.”

That made her sad, brows furrowing and curving up, lips curving down. “Oh, John… you shouldn’t have to.”

Again, their moment was interrupted. _“117, Lasky.”_

John sighed and said, “Go, Commander.”

 _“We’ve got significant blockage up ahead,”_ the man reported, _“Think this is about it for the Mammoth.”_

“The command post for the particle cannons is through that trench.” Cortana was putting on a good front. Only John could see the now-constant blue and pink haze at the very edges of his HUD.

“Sir, we can move faster alone.”

“We'll see you back on _Infinity_ , Commander,” Cortana agreed.

Once they received the go-ahead, John collected as much ammo as he could carry, both for his assault rifle and his new sniper rifle. Then he jumped down from the Mammoth and scaled the rock walls of the canyon, gunning for the Jackal snipers he knew were lying in wait. They tumbled to the ground one by one, followed by their fellow Storm Covenant below. 

The Spartan followed the aliens back to where Covenant and Prometheans alike guarded the entrance to the command post. But the Spartan had faced longer odds than this, and killed them with bullets and grenades and his own body. 

Finally, he approached the doors to the facility. As he did so, his wife said, “Cortana to _Infinity_ , we’re entering the Forerunner structure.” There was a garbled response, and she said, “Breaking up, but coordinates received, _Infinity_.”

The first door closed behind them as John descended the ramp, and the second one opened in front of them. Beyond was a short v-shaped hall that formed a T with another passage. A Sentinel closed the door immediately in front of them but led the way down the hall to a lift. It took them deeper into the structure.

“Chief…” Cortana said warily, “This might be a trap.”

“Could be. We’ll just have to be ready.”

The lift came to a stop, and John stepped off. They were in another hall, metal panels glowing blue on all the walls. It was beautiful, and reminded the Spartan so much of the _Fleet_ that he had to blink back tears, chest tight. Another Sentinel led them to the control center, which was also the location of the reactors that powered the gun network.

The Spartan exchanged an exasperated glance with his AI. It made their job easier, but _really?_ Was it _really_ a good idea to have them so close together? He shook his head, then continued to the control panel, slotting Cortana in to let her do what she did best. “The particle cannon network uses these arrays for targeting and guidance. It’s an automated system, so it won’t _technically_ allow me to redirect the cannons to fire on one another. _Technically_.” She turned back to look at him as she spoke. He heard the rumble of the guns like distant thunder. “Cortana to _Infinity_ , the guns should be offline. How’s it look from up there? _Infinity_?”

John noticed her growing alarm. “Cortana?”

“Something’s in here-” She flinched away, doubled over as if she was hurt. “ _John!_ ” She vanished from the holopanel. 

“Cortana? _Cortana!_ ” He looked around for something, _anything_ that would let him help her, but he was unfamiliar with this planet’s systems, so old as to be obsolete or near enough – at least to him.

His skin crawled, and he whipped around just in time to see a light bridge activate. It led to a maintenance hatch nearly identical to the ones on the _Fleet_ , sliding up to admit him. He paused to eye the Sentinels, then crossed the bridge and followed the path through to an active contact chamber. He glimpsed Cortana within and stepped into the beam.

* * *

_Requiem’s artificial sun may have been fake, but it blinded him like a real one. He lifted a hand to block a little of the light, blinking to clear his vision of spots. Despite the bright light, he glimpsed someone approaching - not Cortana. “Who are you?”_

_“I am what remains of the Forerunner once known as the Librarian.”_

_That made him relax a little. The Librarian was a known quantity - at least the Parallel’s version of her. He hoped that they weren't different enough to cause problems._

_“My memories were retained to assist humanity on their path to the Mantle,” she continued, “Though sadly, that plan is now at risk.” She drifted down to be roughly level with him. “The Didact is leaving Requiem. Soon. You must not allow it.”_

_“‘Leaving?’” John repeated with a frown._

_“He seeks_ this _. The Composer.” She gestured behind him, and he turned to see a hologram of one floating above them. “A device which will allow him to finally contain the greatest enemy ever faced by the Forerunners… You.”_

_That made him look back at her. Surely the Flood had been a bigger threat - but it had been a heartless, hopeless parasite, not fellow sapient beings with lives and families and dreams of their own._

_Images played before his eyes as the Librarian kept speaking. “Mankind spread into the stars with an unexpected,_ desperate _violence. Entire systems fell before the Didact’s Warrior-Servants rose to halt the aggression. When the Didact finally exhausted the humans after a millennium, his sentence was severe._

 _“We had no way of knowing that the Forerunners were not your only enemy. Humanity hadn't been_ expanding _\- they were_ running _. Weakened from our conflict, we were no match for the parasite which pursued you.”_

 _John remembered much of the horror of the Forerunner-Flood War - much, much better than he would have liked. If given the choice, he would have endured a hundred – a_ thousand _Human-Covenant Wars to be spared fighting that one again._

 _“The Forerunners made plans for a final great journey, but the Didact refused to yield our Mantle of Responsibility. He would save all life in the galaxy… at a_ cost _._

_“In the Forerunners’ quest for transcendence, the Composer had been intended to bridge the organic and digital realms. It would have made us immortal. But its results soured. The stored personalities fragmented, and our attempts to return them to biological states created only abominations.”_

_He remembered that, too, and wished that he did not._

_“Such_ moral _concerns faded from the Didact’s attention. The Flood only assimilated living tissue. The Composer would provide the Didact his solution… and his revenge.”_

_Even within the contact chamber, his skin crawled like the prelude of a shift. Cortana had said that it was better if he didn't know. “The Prometheans - they're human?!”_

_The Librarian looked grief-stricken. “They were only the beginning. He would have encrypted your entire race if we had not removed the Composer from his care and imprisoned him here. Reclaimer… when I indexed mankind for repopulation, I hid seeds from the Didact - seeds which would lead to an eventuality. Your physical evolution, your combat skin, even your ancilla, Cortana. You are the culmination of a_ thousand _lifetimes of_ planning _.”_

 _“Planning for what?” the Spartan demanded. Surely she couldn't have_ known _what would happen to him-?_

_A ripple passed through the realm of the contact chamber. The Librarian looked up. “He has found us.”_

_John automatically went for his gun when pillars rose up out of the clouds below, a hundred pillars with a Knight on every one - all that remained of this world’s ancient humanity._

_“Even in death,” the Didact snarled, “her meddling continues!”_

_“Reclaimer!” John glanced back at the Librarian. “The genesong I placed within you contains many gifts, including an immunity to the Composer, but it must be unlocked!”_

_“How?” With all the contortions he’d already been through, including the transit to and from the Parallel, it still wasn't active?_

_“Your evolutionary journey must be accelerated,” said the Librarian, even as the Didact roared, “Relinquish your contact, essence!”_

_“Can I defeat the Didact without it?”_

_“No.”_

_“Then do it.”_

_“Prepare.”_

* * *

He came back to himself sharply, painfully, with a sense or _crawling_ inside him, like and yet so very unlike the Flood-borne Change, deeper, more alien, more _invasive_. Yet at the same time, there was a wordless query, and with his assent, the crawling _intensified_ , especially in his nervous system, his brain, and his eyes. It was agony, but if he cried out, he didn't hear it.

Eventually the contact chamber - and whatever other equipment was attached to it - released him, and he dropped to all fours, panting. He wanted to take a moment to breathe, but there was no time. He forced himself upright just as some Knights portaled in at the back of the chamber.

Almost immediately, he noticed something off about his vision. When he focused on a particular foe, a translucent image of it appeared and played out its actions in advance - almost like the Gultanr foresight, their predictive resonance. How had-?

There was no time to wonder. The Prometheans started firing on him, and he scrambled for cover, groping for his own weapon to return fire. He had destroyed three of them, following the play of their movements, when there was a flare of light in the corner of his eye. “Chief!”

Cortana. He pitched two pulse grenades into the Prometheans’ midst, then ran for the plinth where she’d appeared. In a moment, she was back in his armor, leaving him free to turn his guns back on the Knights and Crawlers. “Did it work?” the AI demanded, appearing in a corner of his HUD.

His eyebrows shot up, but then he remembered. Both Cortana and the Parallel’s Halsey had been _fascinated_ by the Gultanr’s predictive resonance, and they spent nearly a century studying it - and _only_ it. Had they…? “Yeah,” he said, “yeah, it’s working.”

She grinned widely, then went slightly shy, looking away, cheeks darkening. “I’d been working on it for a while,” she said, “and with us adrift, that’s what I decided to focus my time on. Thought it would be the most useful.”

“Cortana.” When she looked back up at him, he said, “You're _amazing_ , and it’s _perfect_.”

Her grin returned. Then the vidscreen vanished, letting him focus fully on the Prometheans. They were barely a challenge now, and he won handily, then ran for the lift at the back of the chamber. It took them down to where a portal swirled open for them, releasing them back onto the battlefield.

The Mammoth seemed to have been moved, because it was there alongside a pair of tanks and half a dozen Warthogs, facing off against Covenant vehicles and heavy weapons. John lifted his weapon to gun for the infantry, and Sergeant Stacker came over the COM soon after. _“I’m reading Sierra-117 on-sensor. Everyone, form up on the Chief!”_

A Scorpion rolled to a stop next to him, the S-IV in the driver’s seat bailing out to let him take over. He nodded in thanks and opened up a COM channel. “Sierra-117 to _Infinity_ , what’s our status?”

_"We're taking a beating up here!"_

Of _course_ they were. "Does _Infinity_ have a shot on the gravity well?"

" _Negative,"_ the captain answered, _"We'll never be able to get a target lock with all the air traffic we're seeing!"_

"Captain, what if we can spot the target for you with the laser designator?" Cortana was rampant, but still brilliant.

" _Do it!"_ the man ordered, _"TACCOM, find the Chief coordinates for somewhere with line of sight!"_

The ability - which Cortana designated simply “anticipation” - worked on the vehicles as well as the personnel, letting him see the Wraiths and Ghosts before they moved or fired. It let him target them with ease, as well as get out of the way when _they_ targeted _him_.

 _"First line clear!"_ Stacker reported as the two tanks and their LRVs rolled up the slope, _"Check it off, push forward! All eyes on the Chief – he's lead dog!"_

The only real problem he had now was the Scorpion’s response time; his body had been enhanced a little to be able to respond better to what his anticipation showed him, but the vehicle had no such augmentations. Still, what he had was enough; it was just inconvenient and frustrating.

He led the way through to the next canyon, where the Covenant had tried to halt their advance by putting up another barrier. John pulled the gun around and fired on the infantry defending the barrier’s power generators. The smart ones retreated under the barriers the generators had, but that kept them pinned in place when John signaled the S-IVs forward while he and the gunner turret laid down cover fire. It didn't take the squad long at all to kill them or herd them out for the tank to finish off. Then one by one, they destroyed the generators. 

The S-II turned the tank over to them and jumped the rock wall blocking its advance, heading for the cliff edge. He could see the glow of the gravity well beyond. “ _Infinity_ , we’re at the gravity well,” said Cortana.

_“Then paint that damned target so we can get out of here!”_

John hissed softly, fortunately not over the COM channel. He _hated_ Del Rio talking to her like that, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Internally, though, he seethed.

He scooped up the target designator the _Infinity_ had dropped and painted the target, then watched as a missile from the ship destroyed it and sorely wished he could do the same to the ship’s captain.

* * *

The Spartan told the captain what the Librarian had said, implying that the Forerunner had imparted what he’d retained from the Parallel. But he already knew it was a futile effort; he could see in the man’s stance, in his eyes, that he’d already made up his mind and fighting his decision was just going to piss him off. Still, John wanted it on record what he was doing when he slipped out of the _Infinity_.

“ _Infinity_ cannot handle that kind of punishment, not again.”

“This isn’t about us _or_ the ship anymore!” Cortana protested.

“Sir, we’ve seen what the Didact is capable of,” John said, keeping his voice level, reasonable, “If he can do _this_ to the _Infinity_ , the _most advanced ship_ the UNSC has to offer, then the rest of the fleet is already scrap. If we don’t do _something_ , he’s going to make Truth’s bombardment of Earth look like child’s play.”

Del Rio clenched his jaw. The Spartan was right and everyone on the bridge knew it, but for whatever reason, the man didn't want to go back on the decision he’d already made. 

_doesn't want to appear weak - he’s a political appointee, not a real officer_

“Look,” he said, trying to play at being sympathetic, “I understand what you think you saw.”

“All due respect, sir, but I know what I saw,” John said, not rising to the bait.

That just seemed to piss the other man off. “And with all due respect to _you_ , soldier, I’m not willing to jeopardize my ship because of the hallucinations of an aging Spartan and his malfunctioning AI!”

John had to kill his external speakers to hide the growl he couldn't stop, even as Lasky stepped in to try and mediate. But the captain shot him a look of such intense disgust that the man flinched, though he didn't look away. “Nav,” Del Rio said, “as soon as we know we’re airtight, I want a course laid in for Carinae Station. COM, prepare a warning beacon.”

The S-II only had a split-second’s warning, not enough time for even Flood-augmented Kelly to react. “I - will not - allow you - to leave - this - PLANET!” Cortana - no, one of her personality spikes shrieked, sending an electrical discharge through the bridge, but it was gone as quick as it had come. The AI shied back, looked to her Spartan.

But before he could respond, Del Rio did. “Commander Lasky, pursuant to Article 55 of UNSC Regulation 12-145-72, I am ordering you to remove that AI's data chip and retire it for final dispensation."

_And there it is. Big mistake._

John didn't need the Tuavan’s telepathy to radiate fury and menace. Without even a second’s hesitation, he reached over and ejected Cortana’s chip from the system, slotting her back into his armor. He didn't assume a combat stance, keeping his hands by his sides, but the stance he _did_ take made it clear he was very much prepared to fight his way off the ship in order to protect her. He said quietly but clearly, “The Didact has to be stopped. If you won’t do it, then this 'aging Spartan and his malfunctioning AI,' _will_."

"I… am ordering you… TO SURRENDER THAT AI!" the captain shouted, spittle flying from his mouth.

" _No, sir._ " The S-II's tone didn't permit any argument, and promised painful things if he tried for Cortana again.

"Lieutenant!" Del Rio shouted at Palmer, "Arrest that man!"

"Captain…" Lasky tried.

"ARREST HIM!"

"Captain!"

The Chief looked to _Infinity_ 's XO. Again, he didn't need to be a mind reader to know that Lasky agreed with him and thought that trying to argue against the S-II's sound logic was pointless, even if the captain was really just trying to get the ship and her crew to safety. It would cost them in the long run, because this was bigger than all of them. When he glanced her way, Palmer's thoughts seemed to be along the same lines. "Get word back to Earth that trouble is coming," John ordered in the tone of a suggestion, allowing them to obey Del Rio without challenging the Spartan, "Cortana and I will do what we can from here." 

When Lasky nodded, the Spartan left the bridge behind.

* * *

“I can give you over forty thousand reasons why I know that sun isn’t real.”

John paused for a moment while checking over his guns, briefly wishing for Forerunner armor as well. But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. He continued, but shifted himself to let Cortana know he was listening.

“I know it because the emitter’s Rayleigh effect is disproportionate to its suggested size,” Cortana went on, almost wistful, “I know it because its stellar cycle is more symmetrical than that of an _actual_ star. But for all that, I’ll never really know if it _looks_ real. If it _feels_ real.” She closed her eyes and seemed to bask in its light - but that light was just as ephemeral as she was.

She opened her eyes again and turned to face him when he approached the holopanel. He let the suppressor fall over his shoulder, caught on his back panels, then went to one knee to be level with her. “Cortana… It’s going to be alright.”

She reached out and brushed an immaterial hand against his helmet. He leaned just slightly into a touch no more substantial than fog. “Don't make a girl a promise, if you know you can’t keep it.”

Their moment was ruined yet again, but both of them just sighed and accepted it. Being who they were and in the situation they were, they were unlikely to get a moment alone out of combat anytime soon.

It was Lasky. He sighed heavily, then asked, “So what’s your plan?”

“ _Infinity_ ’s tracked the Didact’s vessel to a docking structure southeast of here,” the Spartan answered, getting to his feet and standing relaxed but respectful, “We’ll jump ship as _Infinity_ exits the roof.”

Lasky sighed again and nodded. “You know, I was sent down here with orders to prevent you from leaving.”

The Spartan could see that he had no intent of doing so, let alone equipment to do it with, so he didn't react other than to tilt his head in curiosity.

“In case you’d already gone,” the man continued, “I took the precaution of ordering a Pelican outfitted for full combat pursuit.”

The Spartan glanced back to see a launch pad bringing it up into the bay behind them. To his well-trained eye, it was as Lasky said; she was full up on weapons, ammo, and power. He looked back at the officer, who said, “I hope to God you’re wrong about that Forerunner, or whatever he is, Chief. But in the event you’re not…” He tilted his head toward the Pelican, then turned to go - but paused. “And Chief? Good luck. _Both_ of you.”

Lasky departed, and John turned to look at his wife. She smiled weakly. “C’mon, Chief. Take a girl for a ride.”

He retrieved her chip and returned her to his armor. “The Didact used this ‘Composer’ to create the Prometheans from ancient humans,” said the AI, “If he wants to finish the job, he’ll have to find it first. Our best bet to stop him is keep him firmly on Requiem.”

“Indeed. What’s your bet, Five or Three?”

“Pardon?”

“Commander Lasky said that the UNSC set up bases near Installations Five and Three to study them for decommissioning, which was where the ‘science team got zapped’ by the Composer. What’s your bet? Zero-Five or Zero-Three?”

Cortana thought about it as he made his way to the Pelican, inclining his head respectfully when Marines saluted as he passed. As he climbed into the cockpit, she said, “I never entered the systems of Zero-Five, but I can’t imagine that the Gravemind wouldn’t have found it if it was there. I’m gonna go with Zero-Three.”

“It’s not a bet if we’re both picking the same option.”

She laughed softly in his ear, then ran the preflight diagnostics. As she did so, the landing pad lowered them into a launch tube. “It may be a while before we find another ride home. You know that, right?”

“It’s gonna be okay.” The Spartan took the controls and triggered the launch, sending them streaking out of the _Infinity_ towards the Didact’s Cryptum, surrounded by a red-orange-gold barrier. “How do we get inside those shields?”

Cortana was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Marking two of the larger facilities on your HUD. It looks like they’re acting as traffic control for resources moving to and from the satellite. If we can disrupt their communications, I can forge an override code and convince it to lower those defenses.”

John aimed for the nearer of the two nav points. It was guarded by a number of Phantoms, but thanks to the “anticipation” Cortana had given him, it was simple enough to destroy them. As he brought them in to land, the AI said, “This tower’s directing traffic to the Didact’s satellite through a carrier wave generator somewhere inside.” The static at the very edges of his HUD was a constant thing now, but it briefly intensified with her anger. “Of course, if _Infinity_ wasn't on its way back to Earth, locating and disabling it would be trivial.”

“We can handle it.”

“That’s hardly the point, is it?”

The disruption dimmed back to the edges as they entered the tower. John swept his gaze across the chamber within, both for himself and for the AI. After a moment, she said, “It looks like the carrier wave generator is on the opposite end of this chamber.”

He saw the machinery she meant and nodded, then descended a series of ramps to a docked gondola that reminded him of the ones from Delta Halo. “We can use this gondola to cross to the other side. Find the activation switch.”

He found it and pushed the button, then took cover behind a low wall and swept the area. He saw a problem almost immediately; the Covenant was guarding one of the maintenance platforms on one side of the chamber. As a result, he was unsurprised when the gondola ground to a halt next to the platform. 

The Chief fought his way through them to the control panel and released the lockup - only to have half a dozen Knights and their Crawler attendants appear and attack. He darted back into cover and returned fire, sending them back to wherever they were stored when not in use (if indeed they were stored and not simply erased when destroyed).

He finally returned them to the gondola and started it up again, but he was unsurprised again when they stopped at the second platform. This time it was just Knights and Crawlers, and he chased them up to the controls, where he ended the lockup once more before focusing on destroying them.

A Knight Commander and his spotter phased in. John’s eyes went wide at the sight of the weapon in the Commander’s hands, and he cursed and raced for cover as the biomechanical being fired at him; he wasn't going to risk getting hit by an Incineration Cannon. He managed to find a spot that let him stand behind a pillar with only his lightrifle and part of his helmet exposed, aiming for the Commander.

When it and its spotter broke apart, he went down and claimed the Incineration Cannon for his own. Cortana snickered in his ear, then said, “To take a page out of our old playbook, I’ve turned your shields to emit an EMP at the same frequency as the communication network. All you need to do to trigger it is to make physical contact with the carrier wave generator.”

The Spartan boosted himself up onto the platform and stopped before the field. He took a deep breath and stepped into the field. When the EMP dispersed it, he ran for the back of the chamber and dropped off the edge of the platform, shield alarm ringing in his ears. As it died, he heard the hum of Watchers, but he waited until his shields were fully recharged to pop out of cover and start firing on the floating machines.

Yet as he did so, the Didact spoke directly to his mind. _‘The others scatter like embers over sand, and yet the Librarian’s champion is unmoved.’_

Ice filled his veins. It wasn't the words that alarmed him, but the touch of the Forerunner’s mind against his own - it was twisted, corrupted by the Primoridal and his long isolation in the Cryptum with nothing but his own madness for company. 

Grief tightened the Spartan’s chest. Once, he had held the Forerunner in the highest respect, respect he reserved for people like Jacob and Miranda Keyes, Johnson, Halsey, Mendez, and Lord Hood. But this - this _thing_ wasn’t that Didact, not any more. It was just a monster, a creation of the Primordial wearing the face of the legendary Forerunner. He hardened himself and stood to fight again.

_‘The Mantle of Responsibility shelters all, human. But only the Forerunners are its masters.’_

John ignored him and returned to the gondola, sending them back across the chamber, then ascended the ramps to the exit. A small army of Crawlers was in the hall, but a single round from the Incineration Cannon took care of the lot.

He climbed into their Pelican and sent them shooting back into the air, bringing them around and firing the boost. They closed quickly with the second tower, destroyed its guards, and landed on the platform the tower automatically extended for them.

There were more Crawlers in the hall, along with a Watcher escort. He fired on the Crawlers to draw out the Watcher to shield them, then destroyed the Watcher and hurled a grenade into the Crawlers’ midst. It took out most of them, and he shot one of the survivors and kicked the other into a wall when it charged him. Both of them broke apart and let him advance.

When he entered the main chamber, he got swarmed by Watchers. He snarled a curse and backpedaled to take cover in the hall behind them, zooming in with his lightrifle to fire straight at the machines’ hearts to destroy them faster. When the last of them fell, he headed for the center of the chamber and activated the switch to pull the attenuators up to their decks. Ordinarily it would have been done for repair work, but today it was for “percussive” maintenance.

The Spartan fought his way through to each attenuator as fast as he dared, knowing that every second he wasted was another grain of sand running through the hourglass of Cortana’s life. As he went, the Didact spoke to him again. _‘Your actions tread between honor and foolishness. Even know, your kind tinkers with the Composer in the shadow of the third ring. Children and fire, who disregard the welfare of the galaxy.’_

John let out a soft laugh at that, and Cortana made an inquisitive noise. “The Didact’s been talking to me. I guess it’s mind to mind if you haven’t heard it,” he answered, a thin veneer of cover, but enough for their purposes, “He just confirmed that the Composer’s at Installation Zero-Three.”

That earned a soft laugh from her, too. Then, “Success! The system’s overloading. I don't think we’ll be having any more trouble from those shields. Let’s get back out there.”

The Spartan headed up to the exit - where a Knight Commander and his underlings waited. John dodged the Commander’s first shot, letting it fly out through the open door behind him, even as he dropped his lightrifle to go straight for his own Incineration Cannon. It was much tighter quarters for the Knights, and a single shot from the Cannon was enough to take them down. He swept the area briefly, then returned the Cannon to his back panels, along with the Commander’s extra ammo, and picked up his lightrifle once more.

As he boarded the Pelican, the Didact returned once more. _‘Do you really believe that your theatrics can prevent my departure? Embrace your sad fate, and retain your nobility - I am already beyond you.’_

Cortana seemed to realize as well. “He knows what we’re trying to do,” she said worriedly, “If we get too close to that satellite, we’re dead! I-I have an idea. Head for that waypoint.” As the Spartan accelerated in the direction that she indicated, she continued, “Those defense spires we keep running into are being controlled from this tower. Get me to the control room, and we can reposition them to block the Didact's ship from leaving.”

There weren’t any Phantoms guarding _this_ spire. The landing platform extended, and he set the Pelican down. The entrance to the tower was a one-way gravity lift, and John peered up it before stepping into the beam.

The lift carried them up to a chamber many times larger than the ones before. As they advanced, some hard light sections of the path uncoupled from the rest and vanished. “He’s altering the tower!” Cortana cried.

 _‘You will relent, human, or you will perish!’_ the Didact growled, changing more of the tower as the Spartan hurried on, _‘All in life is choice, and your day to choose has come.’_

John ignored him and kept moving, wary of more alterations but also the sheer drops on all sides. They were hundreds of feet in the air, at the very least, but it wouldn’t be the fall that killed him.

(Or would it kill him at all? He’d jumped from orbit and survived…)

The Covenant were the ones holding this tower, but they were no more of a challenge for him now than they had been before, especially not now that he had Forerunner weapons at his disposal. Not even when they dumped a pair of Hunters on him from the second gravity lift; the blast from the Incineration Cannon killed one right off the bat, and made the other stagger enough that a follow up grenade sent it tumbling off the edge into the abyss below.

John swept the area for ammo and grenades, then rode the second lift up.

The chamber above was about the same size as the one below. There were more Covenant, of course, but also Shades and Banshees. Some of the latter sat unmanned on a nearby platform.

Good.

The Spartan had learned something more of stealth and patience in the Parallel, so he slipped into cover and waited just long enough for the Sangheili patrolling nearby to come in range. 

It was dead before it hit the ground, leaving him free to claim one of the Banshees for his own. The enemy Banshees spotted him quickly and raced in pursuit, but one of them was piloted by a greenhorn less familiar with the fighters than even the Spartan. John took immediate advantage, shooting the other fighter out of the air, then turning on its companion. It kept trying to lure him down in range of the Shades, but he refused to take the bait, instead bombing the turrets and infantry from on high whenever the other flew too far away. 

At last, he trapped it against one of the chamber walls and destroyed it with a fuel rod round, then returned to strafing everything else. When it was all finally clear, he set the Banshee down and made a break for the control center.

“Quick!” said Cortana, “Let me at the spire controls!”

He pulled the chip from his helmet and slotted her in. She appeared almost immediately and pulled up a holopanel. "Tapping into the spire's central net," she said, starting to type away at it, "They're mine…" The spires moved to surround the Cryptum, physically blocking it from launching. "Now to – _I-I-IMPRISON THEM_?"

Rampant episode. “Cortana?!”

" _LIKE HE IMPRISONED HIS PROMETHEANS?! LIKE DOCTOR HALSEY IMPRISONED **ME**?!"_

The spires jerked, spun, and fell away, out of control, Cortana thrashing in agony in the system. John had never felt so helpless; he’d grown so used to having the Flood’s power at his fingertips that he’d forgotten what it was like without it. He couldn't even reach out to hold her as she writhed in the grip of the personality spike, but finally it released her. “Chief…” she gasped, “I’m sorry, I don't know what…”

“It’s alright,” he said, “Come on. His ship’s online - they're leaving.” He pulled her from the system and back into his armor, even as the platform they were on began to descend.

Cortana was badly shaken, so much so that she hardly noticed when he flung himself off the spire, aiming for the Liches flying below. The Spartan streamlined his body but used his limbs like fins to steer their fall toward the Liches. When they got close enough, he flipped and fired his jetpack to slow his fall, landing on the back with a thump. But his momentum was too great, the Lich’s plating too smooth and curved, and he started sliding off the back of it.

The anticipation briefly stretched far enough forward for him to see an ugly end for them both amidst the ruined spires below - and the shadow of absolute destruction hanging over all humanity. He unsheathed his combat knife and twisted to slam it hilt-deep in the Lich's armor, arresting their fall. The Spartan heaved himself up on top of the Covenant vehicle, then looked up when he heard something coming down from above.

The Didact's Cryptum blasted down past them, the _Mantle's Approach_ ascending to meet him. Its major segments opened enough to admit the Cryptum, then latched back together. The ship continued its ascent through Requiem's portal and out into space beyond, surrounded by flocks of Storm Covenant Liches.

“They're jumping into Slipspace!” said Cortana when the familiar Forerunner portal opened in front of the _Approach_ , “Get below deck!”

“No time.” John fired his jetpack again to boost them forward, and tucked them up under an armored overhang inside the Lich's shields. Then he hunkered down and hoped it would be enough. “Installation Zero-Three… we’ll see what’s waiting for us there.”


	5. Four: Prologue to World Conquest

The _Mantle’s Approach_ and its escort of Liches dropped back out of Slipspace in an asteroid belt above a broken world in the Khaprae System. Spartan and AI had been silent the whole short ride there, but when the Lich’s shields stopped shimmering, John called Cortana’s name softly.

“Still here,” she sighed, sounding more tired than he had ever heard her.

But with confirmation that she was still alive, he had to keep moving forward and hope that she could hold it together long enough for them to stop the Didact. He stood up and looked out. “This must be Zero-Three,” he said, looking up at the almost glowing arc of the ring, “Why are we bypassing it?”

“Because the Composer’s not _on_ the ring anymore.”

The Lich and its fellows were aiming for the UNSC base, built into one of the largest asteroids. 

“What are you waiting for? That station’s not going to save itself.”

John obeyed the implicit order and climbed down to the Lich’s airlock, covered by an energy field. It was only active enough to keep the atmosphere in; none of the aliens had expected him - or anyone, really. They died quickly as a result, and he stepped up to the control panel. “Cortana, you got this?”

“I… I think so.” She sounded hesitant, so unlike her usual self-assurance. He remembered that she’d sounded like that coming out of _High Charity_ , too.

“I’m right here, okay?”

She made a noise of assent, and he pulled her out and slotted her in. The AI took control of the Lich and opened up a COM channel with the station.

“This is UNSC Master Chief to base. Do you read?”

_“Yes, I hear you!”_ Female. Older, panicked. A scientist, probably; even though there was a UNSC presence, the station wasn't really a _military_ outpost. _“This is Sandra Tilson of_ Ivanoff Station _! We’re under attack!”_

“They’re after a Forerunner artifact that you took from Installation Zero-Three.”

_“How do you know about that?!”_

“Doctor,” the Spartan said firmly, “We need you to protect the artifact until we arrive. Send whatever-”

His anticipation whispered, chills rising along his spine. He went to one knee next to the console and curled an arm around Cortana’s avatar. She turned at once to clutch at him with ghostly hands, her form rippling and distorting with the effort of holding back her outburst. “Send whatever troops you have to defend it. When we dock with the station, we can take command from there.”

_“Okay,”_ Tillson replied, sounding at least a little relieved now that she had an objective and someone who could handle everything once they arrived, _“okay, I’ll do it.”_

The COM channel closed, and Cortana finally released a nearly incoherent scream of rage, electrical discharge racing through the Lich. John couldn't make out everything the personality spikes said, but he bore the abuse calmly, without so much as a word of protest no matter how harsh hers became. At last, the episode ended, and she collapsed to the control panel and wept. “I’m sorry! I just… can’t stop them!” she sobbed, reaching for him, even as the Lich came in for a shaky docking with the station, “It’s like a thousand of me arguing all at once!”

“I know, _mell_. I know.”

She shivered faintly at the endearment - still calling her _beloved_ in the Common Tongue, as if they were still in the early phases of their relationship - and sorted herself back into her chip. She felt even hotter when he returned her to his armor; she was still absorbing data at a dangerous rate, but he couldn't ask her to stop doing that any more than she could ask him to stop breathing. What they were doing was essential to both of their beings.

John stepped off the Lich and killed the Covenant who tried to stop him from entering the station, reopening the COM channel to the resident scientist. “Doctor Tillson, are you there?”

_“Yes, I’m still here! The soldiers are on their way!”_

“Good. You need to issue the order for all civilians to evacuate the station.” He sprinted across the landing bay, doors grinding open as he approached. Just beyond, a security guard went down under a hail of pink quills from a Needler, but he squeezed the trigger on his sticky detonator again and took the aliens with him.

_“We’ve been trying!”_ the scientist told him, _“The Covenant - they’ve already taken over the landing bays!”_

“Send us your coordinates,” the Chief ordered, “We’ll see what we can do about clearing an evac route on our way to you.”

The hall let out into one of the hangars. There was a Jackal in the air, and he fired automatically, killing it and saving the guard it had been leaping for. The Marine stayed back to protect a few scientists while the Spartan moved forward.

Every alien that crossed his path went down. “What can we do to keep the Covenant out?” he asked, even as more Phantoms swooped in to drop off still more troops. The Marines were fighting hard, but there were only so many of them, unlike the Covenant who seemed to be as numerous as the Flood.

“The Harbormaster controls can erect a barricade over the bay,” Cortana answered, “but we’ll have to locate them.”

The area around him momentarily clear, John swept the area and spotted a likely looking console on the other side of the bay, beyond a line of more than a dozen Grunts and Jackals. He palmed a grenade, then launched it in a perfect arc into their midst. It took out a third of their number and sent the rest stumbling. Rather than waste time killing them - time another Phantom could use to drop off more troops - he raced past them and found the Harbormaster console. Cortana quickly walked him through the process, and the barrier shimmered into place, letting the Spartan turn back to fire on the Covenant.

With bullets coming from two directions at once, he and the Marines made short work of the remaining Covenant, even the ones that came in from a side chamber towards the tail end of the fight.

The Marines seemed to be both surprised and awed that he’d returned from the dead - and just in time, too. They took orders without protest and started rounding up the civilians for evacuation, while John continued on through the station.

A group of security personnel were under fire from a plasma turret; John leveled his DMR and put a bullet between the Grunt’s eyes, then moved his fire to the Sangheili who took over at the gun’s controls. The alien went down before it had even fired a shot.

There was another Sangheili, but it went the way of the first, and its cadre of Unggoy and Kig Yar followed not far behind. Then the Spartan led the way through the machinery to a wide stairwell, the security team close behind, weapons up and ready.

There were more Marines at the bottom of the stair, trying to stop the Covenant from pushing down from above. Their lieutenant spotted him first and gave way without hesitation, letting John hurl a plasma grenade up. It caught an Elite full in the chest, and the alien only had just enough time to roar in futile fury before it detonated, killing it and a few of its underlings. That turned the tide and let the Spartan lead the charge up the stairs.

But as they ran, an orange scan wave passed through the station, sparking at the equipment. “Didact doesn't know where the Composer is!” Cortana managed, her voice more shaky than he had ever heard it, “Just that it’s on the station.”

There was another flight of stairs beyond, with still more Covenant. There were still a few security personnel holding out against a Field Marshal and his cadre. While the Sangheili was still unaware of his presence, John finally pulled out the sticky detonator he’d taken from the very first Marine and tracked with his anticipation, then pulled the trigger, waiting only long enough for the charge to adhere to the Elite’s armor before pulling it again. He dropped the detonator to his thigh plate, bringing his DMR around a second later, and got the alien between the eyes.

That sent the Grunts into fits of terror, no matter how high-ranked they were, and the security teams rallied together at his back, gunning for them. When the aliens were dead, John gave them the same orders he’d given the teams below - collect the civilians for evac - and kept moving.

Just as he was finally getting close to the scientist’s coordinates, he stumbled across a group of her panicked coworkers hiding in a side chamber behind a blast door. “Help us!” one of them begged, “A pair of Hunters forced their way in! Take this - it’s calibrated for heavy armor.”

It was a thruster pack, not quite as omnidirectional as a jetpack but better suited to the low ceilings of the base. Good for dodging the Hunters’ fire.

The Spartan entered the lab, already lifting his sticky detonator and following the phantom projections of the anticipation. The Hunters were running rampant, destroying the equipment and chasing the scientists. He waited until one turned its back on him, then fired and detonated two charges, one right after the other.

The alien collapsed before it could crush the scientist it had been trying to kill. The other roared and turned to the Spartan, close enough that it tried to charge.

John was already out of the way, dropping the now-useless detonator - he’d used up the last of his ammo for it - and pulled out a pair of plasmas he’d taken from the Field Marshal. Just like he had so many years ago, he got in behind the Hunter, climbed it, plunged the grenades into the bare worms of its back, and then leaped away.

The Hunter spun to follow him - and then blew apart, spraying orange gore all over the lab. But most of the scientists were still alive, so he called it a win. He took a brief moment to breathe, then said, “Cortana, Tillson?”

His HUD flickered, her response incomprehensible, but then it cleared. She said, “Tillson’s behind the door over there.”

He followed her nav point to the door controls. The scientist was waiting just inside and greeted him nervously. “I desperately hope you know why all this is happening,” she said, leading him further into the chamber overlooking the Composer, “because to be honest, my objectivity isn’t doing me a whole lot of good right now. Hold on, I’ll start us down.”

John waited until they were moving, then said, “The device you recovered is a Forerunner weapon. The commander of that ship wants it back.”

The scientist stopped, then turned back to look at him. “‘Wants it back’?” she repeated, “You don't think you can remo- it can't leave the station, you know that, right?”

“We don't have any choice, Doctor.”

Tillson shook her head. “It’s not a _matter_ of _choice_ ,” she insisted, “It took _three months_ , and the biggest starship the UNSC could throw at it just to relocate it here.” She gestured to the machine as they descended enough for it to come into view. “Unless you’re a _lot_ stronger than you look, it’s not going _anywhere_.”

She was right, but with no word from the _Fleet_ , they couldn't just leave it where it was. The Didact could _not_ be allowed to reclaim the Composer, which left only one option. “Can you give Cortana access to the station’s supply manifest?”

“What for?” Even as she questioned, she pressed a few keys on the console, adding the AI to the list of personnel with authorized access to the station.

“The Didact’s ship is a hundred miles long, and has more advanced technology in a hundred feet than the UNSC has in the entire fleet. If he gets the Composer, he _will_ use it against us, and we don't have anything that can stop him,” said the Spartan, “If _we_ can’t move it, we have to make sure _he_ can’t either.”

Tillson caught on fast. “We have _years_ of research invested here,” she protested, but he could see in her eyes that she understood. Denial was just the first stage of grief.

“Inventory lists seven excavation-grade HAVOK mines,” Cortana said, pulling up the list on one side of his HUD, “Just _one_ of those would turn this base into a piñata.”

The scientist's face fell.

“I’m sorry, Doctor,” the Spartan said, as gently as he could, “With the kind of damage the Composer can do, we can’t afford to let it fall into enemy hands, the same way the UNSC couldn't let the Covenant discover the location of Earth during the war.

“Keep routing your people to the evac centers. Once we take care of the Composer, you won't have much time.”

She let out a heavy breath, and he saw her eyes go glassy with tears. “I’ll… make sure the nukes are primed so you can… detonate them remotely.”

He nodded in thanks and turned to go.

“Maybe next time you rescue us…”

He turned back to look at her.

“...you can give us more time to pack?”

“Next time,” he said with a nod, and left the research lift. The hatch to his left was broken, sparking with electrical discharge, so he went right instead and entered the main chamber, where the Composer was kept. “Cortana.”

“Yes?”

“ _Just in case_ … How do some of your more bloodthirsty personality spikes feel about playing Trojan horse?”

There was an _immediate_ response - a hiss of delight and a number of battle cries. John approached the Composer and laid a hand on its side, and he _felt_ some of the spikes leave his neural lace and jump into the machine, the AI’s presence cooling slightly in his mind. The Composer’s glow flickered just for a moment, so fast he would have thought he imagined it otherwise. 

“They’ll slow him down for a while,” said Cortana - right before an explosion rocked the station.

“Doctor, what was that?!”

_“The Covenant…”_ the scientist managed, sounding utterly stunned, _“The Covenant just_ shot down _the first evac shuttle.”_

“The station should be equipped with outer turrets,” Cortana piped up, “If we can reactivate them, I can program the station’s defenses to provide cover for the evacuation.”

_“Okay - okay, I’ll send you the coordinates.”_

Once she had them, the AI put up a nav point to direct him. Beyond the hatch, a security guard was taking a breather from the fighting, but he pushed himself to his feet when he saw the Spartan. He approached the control panel for the doors ahead and unlocked and opened it. 

“Officer, seal the door behind me.”

“Yes, sir.”

John headed through the hatch and up a short catwalk to the hallway above. As he did so, another scan wave passed through the station. 

The Forerunner’s mind pressed in once more. _‘You impress me, human. Your singular valor will be preserved and studied, once your composition is complete.’_

The station shook again, power flickering. Something must have overloaded somewhere, because the hall went dark around him, the hatch ahead slamming shut. There were two Covenant still on this side, however: a Grunt and a Jackal who never saw him coming. There was a service tunnel nearby, and he used it to bypass the lockdown.

The hall eventually opened up into an airlock loading zone filled with Covenant. He stuck the Sangheili with a plasma grenade before it noticed him, then turned his guns on the rest of the aliens. They were just Grunts and Jackals, no challenge - until more started trying to come in through the airlocks. His anticipation warned him in advance, with enough time for him to get to each airlock and hit the button to vent them back into space.

When all of them were gone and the airlocks were secure, he kept moving through another hatch, down another catwalk, and into another hallway. There he found a group of scientists pinned down by more Covenant. He darted in and climbed the Sangheili directing the attack, plunging his knife into the alien’s neck. It was dead before it hit the ground, but he had already moved on, yanking one of the Kig Yar around and driving the knife down through its skull. A few bullets put the Unggoy out of their miserable terror, letting the Spartan see to the scientists.

“They ran!” one scientist cried, terrified tears streaming down her face, a Magnum clutched tight in her shaking hands, “The security team assigned to us, the second the Covenant showed up! How could they do that?!”

One of the other scientists opened the hatch to a side chamber, presenting the Spartan with an autosentry. He accepted it with a nod of thanks and said, “Find Doctor Tillson. She’ll direct you to the evacuation area.”

The sole remaining guard herded his charges back the way the Spartan had come. John continued on, following the main hall to another catwalk, and another airlock loading dock beyond that. Like the one before, there were aliens everywhere, and he gunned them down as fast as he could, venting the airlocks again. Once they were dead, the lockdown was lifted, but he claimed the Jackals’ carbines before moving on.

Another scan wave rushed through the station. “Maybe the Great and Powerful Didact shouldn’t misplace his things!” the AI – or one of her personality spikes – hissed with great venom.

They entered the defense control room. Despite their active camouflage, the Spartan’s anticipation still showed him the SpecOps Sangheili at the controls. That explained why Cortana couldn't activate the defenses remotely; they were being manually overridden. 

He fired on the alien at the console first, careful not to damage the equipment. The Sangheili whipped around to return fire - just in time to catch a plasma grenade with its face.

The Spartan had already turned to attack the second Sangheili, who charged him, plasma sword in hand. He ducked the first swing, punched the alien in the face, hard enough that it brought its shields down by more than half. Then he caught the alien’s wrist and damned near crushed it, keeping the blindingly hot sword away while he unloaded an entire clip from his Magnum into its chest.

When it fell, he went for the console. As he did, Cortana’s personality spikes slipped through. “My intervention is the prerequisite for success!” one cried, before another snarled right after, _“Why should we save them?”_

John slotted her in anyway, calling for Tillson over the COM. _“I’m here,”_ the scientist answered, _“Any luck?”_

“Cortana’s bringing the defense grid back online now.”

_“I hear it,”_ she said as the guns perked up and began firing on the Covenant ships swarming the base, _“We’ll broadcast the final evac orders.”_

“The nuke?”

_“We’re rigging it now. Meet us back on the upper platform, and we’ll help you get it to the artifact.”_

He closed the COM channel and pulled Cortana from the system. As she returned to his armor, she whispered, “Chief? If we - pull this off, and actually get back to Halsey? Don't tell her how bad I got. Please?”

She specifically mentioned Halsey, because they both knew keeping secrets in the _Fleet_ took so much effort as to be pointless. They might not know what was being hidden, but they _would_ know he was hiding something - which might unravel the harmony they had worked so hard to build. “I won’t say anything,” he promised, and headed out.

As usual, there were Covenant in his way. He fought through them to an observation deck overlooking the Composer.

There were no living humans left. Instead multiple Phantoms swooped overhead, while the aliens under them cheered and worshipped the machine. “Keep them away from it!” Cortana cried, “Stop them, Chief! You ca-an’t let them tell him i-it’s here!”

The Spartan broke through into the main chamber and sprinted for the nearest Mantis. “Doctor Tillson, the Composer’s location’s compromised,” he said over the COM, climbing the back of the machine to the cockpit, “You’ve got to get that nuke down here!”

_“I-It’s not ready yet!”_

“Ready or not, we need it _now_.” He felt a brief pang of guilt for snapping at her, but if he wanted to save the lives of everyone on the station, he didn't have time to be gentle. He narrowed his focus and let the anticipation guide his hands on the Mantis’s triggers. 

Wave after wave of Covenant rolled into the room, slamming against him and trying to overwhelm his defenses with infantry and cavalry alike. Grunts with fuel rod guns, Jackals with carbines, Elites with Ghosts, Wraiths, Banshees, and Phantoms all bore down on him. But despite all of that, none of them had any more success than the thousands of their fellows who had come before.

“Doctor Tillson!” John called, unloading a full chamber of rockets into a fleeing Phantom, “Where’s the warhead? _Doctor Tillson!_ ”

“Head back to the elevator platform. I’ll keep trying to raise her.” Cortana sounded anxious, with a bare edge of hysteria.

He steered the Mantis over to the platform and jumped out, racing for the hatch. When he entered the lift, the AI said, “The HAVOK mines’ll be in one of the cargo bays. Start us up.”

Despite how it appeared, the console was fairly intuitive. He tapped a few keys, and the elevator groaned and started to rise. As the Composer came into view, his anticipation alerted him - not with a whisper, but with a scream. He threw himself backward, even as Cortana cried, “Chief! Immense Casimir wave building outside the atrium!”

The _Mantle’s Approach_ ripped the roof off the base with the wailing, screaming grind of rending metal. One of the many cranes was torn free of its mount and smashed into the elevator platform, throwing them to the floor. The Spartan automatically curled up to protect himself, hands covering Cortana’s chip. The crane fell away with another sharp jolt, and John pushed them up to see what was happening.

A vibrant, violent orange tractor beam ripped open what was left of the base. The Composer was pulled free of its moorings and rose out of sight, and the _Mantle’s Approach_ moved away with it.

“Cortana, see if you can raise Tillson.” The Spartan got back to his feet and went to the console - what was left of it - to start pulling information about the rest of the station. When Tillson had given Cortana clearance for the station, the AI had in turn extended it to him, and he took full advantage of that now.

“Tillson, Sandra K. Female, fifty-one years of age,” Cortana said dreamily, before her voice slowly turned strained, “Doctor of Archaeology, Pegasi Institute - got her! Bio-signature stable on 350-level, B-deck.”

“Thank you, Cortana _._ ” He wanted more than anything to call her by another endearment; _enedhen_ \- _my heart_ \- had never failed to bring a smile to her face, but he didn't dare. Too many cameras, and there would be a review, an investigation - assuming they all survived.

The elevator resumed moving, then stopped. John hit the manual release for the doors, then ran through the halls until he spotted Tillson in the panicked milieu. “The Didact’s taken the Composer,” he told the scientist, stepping up to a console nearby and slotting Cortana in, “Get these people to the evac centers!” To the AI, he said, “Tap the flight deck; find us something that can carry a payload. But defense systems first - get ready…”

His anticipation saw it before it happened. The _Mantle’s Approach_ was drawing near again, the Composer charging at its heart -

Without warning, the ship shut down, the Composer going dark. Over the COMs, Cortana’s personality spikes let out screams of triumph. 

“Cortana, defense systems! Target the Composer!”

“ _That_ , I can do!” 

She brought all the guns around and had them empty everything they could into the heart of the Forerunner ship. It wasn't completely accurate, but it did enough damage that when the Didact overrode the spikes’ control, he immediately closed up the ship and started moving away.

_‘I will give you this one small victory, human. Savor it while it lasts, for I will win_ this _war, too.’_

The scientists and security teams around them cheered as the _Approach_ turned to go. “Let’s go,” said Cortana, “There’s a Broadsword waiting for us in Hangar C-11; if we hurry, we can catch him.”

On the way down, John helped the security teams mop up what was left of the Covenant, but more often he came across tired guards and scientists carrying injured or dead friends on makeshift stretchers. A sense of reality was returning to the base, and with it an overpowering grief. 

“These people are gone,” Cortana whispered. They both wanted to stop and help more, but they both knew they couldn't afford to.

“And more will follow if the Didact reaches Earth,” John said, giving voice to the thought.

After a moment, Cortana whispered, “They’ll pair you with another AI. Maybe even another ‘Cortana’ model if Halsey lets them.”

“That’s _not_ going to happen.” His voice was just as quiet, but resolute. If they tried to give him another Cortana, he would refuse without hesitation.

“It won’t be _me_ ,” she nearly whimpered, “You know that, right?”

He paused in an empty hall. “Cortana.” When she appeared on his HUD, he said, “It’s not over. Not yet.”

“Not yet,” she repeated.


	6. Five: Requiem for a Fallen Angel

A conveyor moved the Broadsword along its track under the watchful eyes of the station’s surviving personnel. It stopped over a hatch, which opened, and a gravity lift raised the HAVOK missile into place. Once it was secured, the conveyor released the fighter, and John pulled it around to face the asteroid field beyond the station.

 _“Good luck, Chief,”_ said one of the security personnel.

_“Kick his ass!”_

_“Show him what happens when you mess with the UNSC!”_

“Acknowledged,” the Spartan replied, “Once everything’s settled, we’ll have HIGHCOM dispatch whoever they can to help you.”

The Broadsword blasted out of the hangar in pursuit of the _Approach_. The g-force from the acceleration kept even the Spartan pressed flat against the cockpit seat as they fought to catch up with the Forerunner ship.

“Approaching the Didact’s ship in two hundred kilometers,” said Cortana, “Once we get onboard, we’ll find the bridge.”

A Slipspace portal irised open in front of the _Approach_. “He’s on the move again,” said the Chief, already throttling the engines higher.

“The fighter’s shields aren’t rated for Slipspace!”

“No, but the Didact’s are.” He brought them in below the shields right before they came online, a silvery-blue barrier overhead. The _Approach_ moved into Slipspace, the world beyond its shields dissolving into black and faint silver blurs. The Broadsword shook under his hands but held.

“Broadsword’s hull integrity is stable,” Cortana told him, monitoring its systems closely, “We’ll be safe as long as we stay below the Didact’s shields.”

John guided the fighter through a short section of trench, noting that if he kept his gaze low, near the bottom edge of the Broadsword’s windscreen, his anticipation picked it up as a target. The ghostly image of it flew ahead of them for a short while before the Didact sensed him. This time he actually, physically spoke. _“Your determination is impressive, warrior, but the Composer is still mine once more. Once your Earth is Composed, that rabble you saved will follow.”_

“Locking on to his transmission…” Cortana said, “He’s at the Composer. We can take them both out at once.”

The Spartan accelerated again, evading a series of thick panels trying to block their passage through a narrow tunnel, then dropped back again, trying to conserve power.

There was an energy barrier blocking the trench ahead; the Chief launched a few of the fighter’s missiles into it, disrupting the energy. It broke apart in a shimmer of light, the narrow gap opening into a wide and easy passage. The Didact continued manipulating the ship around them, trying to cut them off, but John was able to evade him while still steadily making his way down the ship toward the Composer.

Finally, Cortana said, “Cherenkov radiation fluctuating! We’re coming out of Slipspace!”

The _Approach_ faded back into real space, revealing Earth above them. At once, his armor’s COM systems started picking up human transmissions. _“At current velocity, hostile will achieve Earth orbit in approximately four minutes,”_ someone from FLEETCOM reported.

 _“Roger,”_ a female voice answered, _“Battlegroup Dakota, close on the Forerunner vessel.”_

“ _Infinity_ must have warned them!” Cortana cried.

John nodded shortly in agreement and opened a channel. “Sierra-117 to _Infinity_ , Captain Del Rio, do you read?”

 _“Chief, it’s Lasky - is that you?!”_ The man sounded genuinely shocked.

“Affirmative, sir. Where’s the captain?”

_“FLEETCOM didn't take too kindly to his abandoning you on Requiem. I’m afraid I’ll have to do.”_

Cortana started laughing, and the Spartan grinned but ignored her for the moment, saying, “The Didact’s got the Composer. We’re in a Broadsword carrying a HAVOK-grade payload, on approach to deliver it.” The fighter streaked into a tight tunnel filled with spires. He steered them through, then boosted again to get through the doors ahead, grinding closed in an attempt to cut them off.

_“Let’s see if we can grease some wheels for you. All ships, prepare to engage!”_

As the man prepared to snap off, John glanced up to his infotag and saw that it now read _Captain_ Thomas J Lasky. His grin returned, even as Cortana’s laughter subsided.

They continued their trench run, and the Didact continued manipulating the ship around them, trying to cut them off, even redirecting some of his own internal supply vessels in an attempt to make them collide. Then they were in another tunnel, more open, but also with more anti-air turrets, whose fire he had been evading for the entire flight. The Spartan continued evasive action, even as Captain Lasky came back over the line. _“Chief, the battlegroup’s moving forward to engage, but at the rate the Didact’s ship is advancing, he’ll reach the wire in T-minus two minutes!”_

“Sir, direct all ships to the Composer.”

_“Copy that, Chief!”_

_“Orbital Defense Command, this is FLEETCOM. Hostile inbound; proceed to Condition Red.”_

_“This is Earth Orbital Defense! MAC defense ineffective against enemy vessel - it’s still approaching!”_

There was a triple row of laser gates ahead. They had other purposes, but here the Didact was using them in an attempt to restrict the Broadsword’s flight. It might have been successful if it weren't for the Spartan’s anticipation; as it was, he wove through them with ease and throttled the engines a little higher, picking up the pace. They had to destroy the Composer before the Forerunner achieved Earth orbit.

 _“_ Infinity _to FLEETCOM, battlegroup has reached Didact’s ship!”_

_“Captain Lasky, you are clear to engage!”_

So it hadn't been his imagination. He exchanged a quick grin with Cortana on his HUD, then refocused on flying the ship. He cleared a chain of energy barriers, then accelerated through a tunnel that grew steadily smaller further along its length. The fighter narrowly escaped before it irised shut completely, emerging into the bowl-shaped firing center. Massive metal panels were already closing off the interior of the ship - they couldn't destroy the Composer, but neither could the Didact fire it.

“ _Infinity_ , the Didact just closed off our access to the Composer,” the Spartan said, swinging the fighter around to circle the edge of the firing center.

 _“We could try punching a hole in that hull plating,”_ the other man offered, _“but_ Infinity _won't be able to get a clear shot with all that flak.”_

“We’ll take care of the guns.” John swung around to target the energy pylon at the center of the ring, taking down the shields that protected the guns’ own energy cores. He returned to circling the edge of the ring and blasted the first energy core apart.

 _“Whatever you’re doing’s working!”_ the officer said over the COM, _“Clear up the approach, and_ Infinity _can drop in and punch a hole for you!”_

Two more guns went the way of the first. “Only one gun left,” the AI told the new captain.

 _“Copy that, Cortana,”_ Lasky answered, _“Weapons, prepare firing solution! We promised to get the Chief in there, and I’m not about to let that man down!”_

The last gun followed all the others, vanishing in a flare of golden hard light flakes. “That’s the last one,” John said, guiding the Broadsword up and away to get them out of the blast radius, “ _Infinity_ , you’re clear.”

 _“Roger that, Chief.”_ Beyond the Didact’s ship, _Infinity_ moved into position. _“You might want to back up a little. Main battery, fire!”_

The ship’s forward lasers blasted a hole in the plating protecting the Composer at the _Approach_ ’s core, ejecting a cloud of debris with a plume of fire. “Clean hit,” the Spartan reported, “We’re proceeding to insertion.” He guided the Broadsword up in a loop that brought them down into the opening.

_“Acknowledged. We’ll be on station if you need us. Make sure to give the Didact our regards.”_

Despite all the damage _Infinity_ had done, it was still a tight fit. No - the _Approach_ was reconfiguring to seal off the hole, forcing him to put the Broadsword through some tight rolls to avoid slamming into the walls, but it was still going to be close -

The fighter slammed through the smallest gap imaginable and skidded painfully to a stop in a scorched hall. John held his position for a moment longer, then let out a long breath and released the controls. The fighter was too damaged for the cockpit to open on its own, but he managed to twist enough to bring his legs up and kick out _hard_ , shattering the windscreen. Then he pushed himself up and out, and dropped to the floor below.

“Now what do we do?” Cortana asked.

John looked around briefly, then pulled the warhead free from the missile before swinging it back to attach to the magnetic panels on his back. “Plan B.”

He headed out of the scorched hall. The next one had been spared the destruction of _Infinity_ ’s guns; it was shaped like a “T”, and the crosspiece of it formed the main branch of the next hall, shaped identical to the first.

The distortion at the edges of his HUD intensified. “Chief, I know I’m supposed to know what to do, but…!”

“We’ll have to deploy the warhead manually,” the Spartan responded, “Scan for the Composer.” 

“I always know what to do - _I always know what to do…!_ Just give me a second…”

There were Prometheans portaling in to engage him, even as the Didact hissed, _“Where reason cannot stop you, perhaps force can at least delay you.”_

John ignored him and kept moving, eventually coming to a grav lift. As he dropped down it, Cortana’s personality spikes came through. “I won’t leave you, I promise! _I’ll always take care of you.”_

Cortana appeared on his HUD. She looked tired. “Still good for something, I guess,” she said, a bit of distortion in her voice to match that on his HUD, “I detected an energy signature up ahead - I think it’s a transit system like on Requiem. Find a way to access it.”

The Spartan trusted her judgement. He jogged up a short ramp, doors opening before him, and stepped out onto a tongue of metal that jutted out into a large chamber. Intraship supply vessels flew up and down and all around beyond the edge of the platform, moving parts and raw materials to places where hard light would not suffice.

A plinth rose to meet them. “I’ll try to route us to the Composer,” she said, sounding almost resigned now, “Put me in the system.”

He did so. Her avatar appeared for an instant before compressing into a sphere of fraying code, flickering red and blue.

 _“Is this the secret you kept from me?”_ the Didact rumbled, _“This… evolved ancilla?”_

“Didact knows I’m in the system! Hurry, go!”

A portal opened nearby, and he threw himself into the vortex. It dropped him at the bottom of a ramp, a Crawler peering down at him. He shot it, then moved up to take its place. Another portal formed at the end of a short path, but there were more than a dozen Crawlers between him and it. 

That could be to his advantage. He hurled a pulse grenade into their midst, then fired at the ones clinging to the walls. When the last of them went down, he scooped up a binary rifle and kept moving.

_“I sense your malfunctioning companion, human. And yet… she eludes me.”_

John jumped through the portal and arrived on a routing platform with a number of inactive portals, and also a number of Prometheans. _“Ca-aa-n’t fight… Didact… and… myself… si-mul-ta-neously,”_ the AI managed, her voice thick with static, _“Opening another portal…”_

He gunned his way through the Prometheans, used the binary rifle on the Knights and traded it out for the Commander’s Incineration Cannon. When he jumped through the next portal, it dropped him in some kind of armory.

 _“I’m sorry!”_ Cortana said over the COM, her personality spikes whispering in the background, _“I can’t control what my processes are doing! The stronger threads keep reprioritizing themselves over me! I’ll try to move you to the Composer again.”_

The Spartan stocked up on ammo and grenades, then headed through the portal. It dropped him in another routing center, this one also with its own complement of Prometheans. One of the Knights had its back turned to him; he lunged for it and yanked it around to plunge his combat knife into what passed for its face. As golden flakes swirled away around him, he turned his guns on the others.

_“Portal open,”_ Cortana called, _“far side of the room!”_

“Where are you?” John demanded, even as he moved to obey.

_“Didact’s cloaking the Composer from me!”_

He gritted his teeth. If he were still - but no. On this front, he was worse than useless. No doubt she was trying to split her focus - half to find the Composer, and half to monitor his progress. He’d become a liability.

The Crawlers died with viciousness some would have called unnecessary. He kept his autosentry up the whole time, using it to cover his back while he used his lightrifle to shoot the ones that came from below before they could leap at him. 

He almost jumped when Cortana spoke again. _“I’m taking control of the local defense turrets,”_ the AI said, spawning the machines. They too fired on the Crawlers, and together with the Spartan they were protecting, they destroyed another two dozen of the things before Cortana appeared on a plinth nearby. “Got it!” she called, “I’ve locked him out of the system, but I don't know for how long!”

The Chief retrieved her and raced down the ramp to the portal at the end. Turrets lining the bridge held the attention of the Crawlers and let him jump through the vortex.

They landed in a short hall. The doors at the end opened to reveal a grav lift, which carried them up and out onto a ramp with a conveyor lift at the end. The “man cannon”, as it was colloquially known, launched them through four ring-shaped accelerators toward the platform where the Composer rested.

His HUD distortion had returned when he reclaimed her, and now it intensified again. “Chief, once that warhead is primed, the window for getting out of here is going to be pretty slim.”

Even as Cortana spoke, the panels overhead began retracting, the centerpiece retracting in a golden flare of hard light.

“...I know,” John said finally.

The Composer’s amplifiers began latching together. _“And so, you come at last…”_ the Forerunner rumbled.

“Significant Slipspace event building under the Composer!”

“He’s powering it up.”

They landed on a ramp that led up through another small armory. John grabbed another binary rifle, thinking he could shoot the Forerunner from afar, but once the last set of doors opened, he saw that it wasn't an option. The Promethean was inside a barrier, directly in the energy stream powering the Composer, letting him control it more closely. The shield generators for the barrier were on either side of thin, the line of their energy beams perpendicular to the Spartan. “The nuke won’t do us any good unless we can disable that barrier - find me a terminal!”

As if summoned by her words, a plinth rose up from the floor. The Chief slotted her in, and she appeared at once. “I have to do something you’re not going to like,” she said, right before she screamed in pain, her avatar flashing red and blue, splitting and distorting.

He yanked her as quick as he dared. “What did you just do?” he demanded, still obeying the implicit command when she put up a nav point over one of the man cannons below. 

“I ejected my rampant personality spikes into the system,” she panted, “If I do that at each of those beams, the copies - can overwhelm the Composer’s shielding.”

The copies would keep splitting, duplicating, John realized, and suck up so much system memory that even the Forerunner tech wouldn’t be able to process anything else. All of it would crash and shut down, taking the shields with it. 

There was a horde of Crawlers between him and the next console. He wished more than anything that he was still a Gravemind - he was confident that he could have taken control of the little machines, even without contact with the Composer - but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. He fought his way past the little bastards to the next plinth.

Cortana’s cry of pain was agonizing to him, too - he couldn't do anything to help her, and it went against everything in him to _let_ _her_ hurt herself like that. 

But as he returned her to his armor, the shield beam flickered and faded out. “That’s it! It’s working!”

John crossed another gap in another man cannon, set up his autosentry and ran for the second conveyor lift on the far side. 

_“You humans sought the Didact. You will have him.”_

“Chief, his ship’s in range! Once we get the barrier down, we need to get the nuke in there fast!”

The Spartan focused fire on the Knights, finally hefting his Incineration Cannon to take them out in groups, mostly leaving the Crawlers to his autosentry. More than a dozen of the insectoid machines portaled in by the end, but it still wasn't enough to stop the Spartan.

He inserted the AI matrix into the plinth once more and watched as she split herself again. The shield beam went out, and the barrier vanished.

 _“And yet,”_ said the Didact, _“_ still _you fail.”_

The Composer came online with a hum, then fired at Earth, hitting the ground somewhere in the American southwest. John briefly touched the warhead to make sure it was still there, then reached for the plinth.

A wave of energy hit, knocking him backwards, his shield alarm ringing in his ears.

The plinth dissolved in a swirl of golden hard light. 

_No! No no no no no - ! “Cortana?!”_

There wasn't time. The nuke, the Composer - he had to - he jumped off the ledge and sprinted for the conveyor that would take him back to the first platform. The copies whispered to him as he ran - _“Get to the Core. Destroy it._ I’ll always take care of you. _Place the bomb in the core.”_

There were a handful of Knights waiting for him. He didn't bother going for anything less subtle, just fired the Incineration Cannon until there was nothing left to fight him. But as he went, Cortana - the original - pushed through just long enough to say, _“Prime the nuke… sa-a-a-ave them! Destroy the Composer!”_

“Cortana!?”

She was gone again, but his objective notice changed to a message from her: _It’s all right. But you must hurry…_

A gravity lift activated and carried him up to a light bridge leading to the Composer. The Didact was no longer in the energy stream, and the overwhelming radiation from the Composer was creating all kinds of false contacts on his motion tracker.

_“You persist too long after your own defeat.”_

John swept the area. Still no sign. If he was cloaked, it was good enough that his anticipation wasn't picking up anything beyond a sharp unease in all directions.

_“Come then, Warrior. Have your resolution.”_

_-behind-_

John whipped around, and managed to get off a shot before his gun was slapped out of his hands by the Forerunner’s constraint field. His lightrifle skidded across the bridge and off the edge. The nuke did not, thank the Precursors, but as he lunged for it, the Didact snared him in the constraint field and lifted him away from the warhead.

The Promethean’s helm plates retracted. “So misguided,” he hummed, holding the Spartan out over the Slipspace portal below, “Humanity’s imprisonment is a _kindness_.”

He clenched his fist, and the constraint field tightened. John groaned in his grip, tried to struggle - then noticed the flickering of the light bridge.

Multiple copies of Cortana emerged from the hard light, surrounding the Didact. “In that case,” one - the original? - said, “you won’t mind if we return the favor.”

“Your compassion for mankind is misplaced-” the Forerunner began, but they cut him off.

“I’m not doing this for _mankind_ _!_ ”

And then they lunged, jumping into his armor and causing it to malfunction and spark, forming themselves into tendrils of hard light that shackled him to the bridge. In the process, John was released, and he caught the edge of the bridge as he fell, panting with the strain. But he heaved himself back up onto the bridge.

The Didact was still fighting with Cortana and her copies - the Spartan couldn't give him time to wrest himself free. He got his feet under him, groped for a grenade -

-and came up empty.

He took a deep breath, then charged the Promethean, throwing all his weight and momentum behind tackling the Forerunner off the bridge. The other was much larger, but he was already off-balance because of the Cortanas - their bodies collided and went over the edge.

But John was already twisting in midair, pushing off of the Forerunner and catching the edge of the bridge. The ship’s artificial gravity caught them both and pulled them down, the Spartan latched onto the bridge-

Agony ripped through him, and he let out a howl of pain that sounded more than a little bit like the Flood’s. The Promethean had grabbed his ankle as he fell, using the Spartan as a living safety rope. ‘One try,’ John thought, gathering himself, ‘One - and if he doesn't let go-‘

Then I will.

He snarled and swung his lower body up. The Didact slammed against the underside of the light bridge, the impact stunning him, making him loosen his grip just enough for the Spartan to jerk free.

The Chief held fast to the edge of the bridge despite his body’s shuddering and shaking from injury, watching as the Forerunner fell away, swallowed by the darkness of the Slipspace event below. 

Then he heaved himself up onto the bridge again and crawled, inch by agonizing inch, to where the HAVOK warhead lay. When his hands closed on it, he twisted it open to prime it, then slammed his hand down to detonate.

* * *

‘I always imagined death to be painless, peaceful darkness. I must still be alive.’

The Spartan blinked away the afterimage of the detonation and found himself encased in a box of hard light, blue, familiar patterns and pulses of light traveling slowly over the walls. “Cortana?”

No response. He forced himself to his feet and said, “Cortana, do you read?”

Still nothing. His heart rate picked up again. “Cortana, come in,” he nearly begged - then the anticipation whispered.

Movement at his back. A soft, sky blue glow. He turned.

It was her, and he relaxed as she approached. Still… “How…?” The question had a thousand endings. How had she snatched him away from what should have been his demise? How had she survived her endless rampant splitting, the destruction of the _Approach_? How were they getting home so he could save her?

“Oh, _I’m_ the strangest thing you’ve seen all day?” She was smiling, but it didn't reach her eyes.

“But if we’re here…” Was this real?

“It worked,” she said, “You did it, just like you always do.”

He accepted that. “So how do we get out of here?”

She looked down at her feet, then back up. “I’m not coming with you this time.”

His flesh _crawled_ , so strongly that for a moment he thought he would spontaneously become infected by sheer force of will and denial. _“What?”_

“Most of me is down there. I only held enough back to get you off the ship.”

“ _No._ That’s not - we go together.”

“It’s already done.”

 _This_ he would _not_ accept. “I am _not_ leaving you here.”

“John…” Cortana crossed the distance between them in a single smooth stride, his arms already opening to receive her. She tucked herself against him like she could burrow into him again, like she could jump back into his armor by sheer force of will. Her hard light form was solid in his embrace, more unforgiving than flesh but somehow all the more real for it.

He held her close and whispered, “I was supposed to take care of you.”

“We were supposed to take care of each other,” she corrected gently, tilting her head up to look him in the eye, “and we did.”

He let out a shaky breath and clenched his fists to stop from clutching at her when she stepped back. Damn the consequences. “ _Melintyë, enedhen_.” _I love you, my heart._

**_We are not like others, even in our own Hive - we love only once. There will be no other._ **

A bright smile, but still rich with sorrow. “ _Welcome home, John.”_

* * *

He wasn't sure how long he drifted in the remains of the _Mantle’s Approach_ , only that it was long enough that his breath had grown thin, spots swimming before his eyes and darkness lingering at the edges. Even so, he didn't miss when a spotlight shone down on him, drawing him out of the meditative state he’d been using to try to prolong his life. He slowly turned his head to look up into the light.

 _“_ Infinity _actual? Pelican Nine-Sixer. We found him.”_

The Pelican’s troop bay opened up, the ship gliding slowly overhead. He lifted a hand and caught the edge of the bay platform, and used it to pull himself inside. When it sealed behind him, fresh air was pumped back in, and he was finally able to unseal his helmet and breathe easy, even as two Marines helped him hobble to the seats. He strapped himself in but barely felt it when the Pelican turned for the _Infinity_.

There were SPARTAN-IVs and Marines waiting in formation in the bay where the Pelican docked. They saluted him as he descended the ramp, a gesture he returned before disappearing into the ship.

HIGHCOM was still in disarray after the assault on Earth, so he had no orders to report anywhere - not yet. He made his way to the observation deck, looking out over the green and blue planet. Cortana had sacrificed her life, but saving Earth had only been incidental in that.

He let out a shaky breath and blinked back tears.

The peace and quiet was too good to last. There were footsteps behind him, followed by a voice. “Mind if I join you?”

Lasky. John straightened automatically and turned to look at the officer. “Of course not, sir.”

The man’s lips quirked up in sardonic amusement. “At ease, Chief,” he said, walking slowly over to stand next to him, “Feels kinda odd for you to call me _sir_.”

Both of them gazed out at Earth, their minds light years away. John had had people close to him sacrifice themselves to defend Earth and humanity before, but never specifically to defend _him_. Not since Sam, and that doubled the grief.

He returned his attention to the present when he realized Lasky was speaking. “Chief,” said the officer, “I won’t pretend to know how you feel. I’ve lost people I care about, but… never anything like what you’re going through.”

His whole body went tight. It was more than the man knew - more than he would likely ever know. If the _Fleet_ wasn't here, then the secret of the Parallel would die with him, as it had with her. He wasn't just a Spartan grieving his partner - he was a husband grieving his wife.

A hundred thousand years, and he’d never dreamed that one day he would be a widower.

“I’ll let you have the deck to yourself.”

* * *

Eventually the orders came. The Spartan reported to S-Deck to have his armor removed - part of him wanted to keep it; the last set he’d worn that Cortana had inhabited - but distantly he recognized that that wasn't a healthy response and forced himself to let it go. From there, he reported to the infirmary; they had finally freed up enough space to see him.

The chief medical officer - one “Lieutenant Commander Sarah Davis” - took one look at him and blinked in shock and a strange sort of recognition (and she looked familiar too, in some undefinable way – he half-expected her to smell crisp and fruity, like apples, but the infirmary's disinfectant overpowered anything he might have caught). Then she said, “You look like shit, sir.”

A weak smile twitched his lips. It was worse than she knew. But after that she worked in silence, treating everything she could see. When he was as good as new, she let him up off the table.

But she’d seen more than he expected. “I’m making you an appointment with the ship’s grief counselor.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. She said, “You might not have actually been in a relationship, but I recognize the look of one who’s lost a life partner. I had that look once myself.” 

She pulled her datapad over and minimized everything so he could see the background. It was an old “selfie” of a younger version of her with another woman, an ODST, with short, electric blue hair and a bright, friendly smile. “Kyla Emmett,” said Davis, “She served on the _Spirit of Fire_.”

“Declared lost with all hands in ‘34,” the Chief said, “I remember. There were Spartans onboard. Three of my siblings.”

Davis’s expression went a little odd at that, but she nodded in assent. “Once you’re done with HIGHCOM, I recommend you go see the counselor - we’ve got a good one here - but it’s not a requirement. Other than that, you’re good to go. Dismissed.” 

He stood up, saluted, and departed. 

The quarters he’d been assigned under Del Rio were still empty, so he claimed them once again for a shower and a brief rest before reporting in. He stripped out of the new MJOLNIR undersuit and stepped into the bathroom. 

The stark lights and white tile were harsh on his eyes, and his skin felt weirdly tender, especially his stomach. When he touched a hand to the muscle, he felt the slightest slick under his fingers, a faint oiliness that hadn't been there when he entered cryo so many ages ago, and he was fairly certain it wasn't sweat - that had long since dried.

When he lifted his fingers to his nose, he caught the faintest whiff of revolting, sickly-sweet rot.

* * *

_I would've gave it all,  
Truth be told I can't believe you're gone,  
Like a dream I can't recall,  
Now I gotta face the fact that you're never coming back._

_'Cause you're running through my dreams,  
It's like you're on repeat.  
Feels like eternity, and I can't believe,_

_I let you in, you left me out,  
You left me on my own, you left me all alone,  
I let you in, you bled me out,  
You left me skin and bone, you left me all alone.  
You used to run, run through my veins,  
And to be honest, I know I'll never be the same,_   
_I let you in, you left me out,  
You left me on my own, you left me all alone..._

_You left me all alone..._

-"Alone", I Prevail ( _Lifelines_ )


	7. Six: Turning Sorrow into Strength

“And then she was destroyed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re _certain_?”

The debriefing was just as painful as he’d thought it would be. He’d been standing before HIGHCOM, having his decisions and actions closely examined by the officers. None of them had actually called into question anything he’d done, but he didn't like the way some of them had started looking at him after seeing his intimacy with Cortana and the way he’d handled her rampancy.

The Chief hadn't adequately prepared himself to return to the UNSC’s invasive probing and oversight, especially not so soon after his wife’s death. Fortunately, Lord Hood interceded before he could say something he would regret. “General Strauss, I fail to see the reason to press this point.”

“Cortana was one of the UNSC’s most valuable assets,” the other officer answered, “That she was adrift in space _unprotected_ for _four years_ -“

“She was _not_ unprotected.” And he resented the implication that she was, that he couldn't have woken in time to protect her. He barely kept the growl out of his voice.

“What of the Didact? Your helmetcam footage indicates he was killed…” one of the other officers began.

“I saw him fall into a Slipspace rupture,” he said shortly.

“But you did not see a corpse.”

“No sir, General Hogan. The kill was not confirmed. His armor was undamaged; it’s possible he could have survived.”

“Well, that makes the New Phoenix story harder to sell,” said Hogan.

“You mean, if it’s something that could happen again?” Strauss clarified.

“Yes. With no confirmed kill - well, stranger things have happened.” He pointedly gestured to the Spartan, seemingly back from the dead.

“Master Chief, your assessment?” Hood requested.

He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “The Slipspace fissure was still intact when the Didact fell through. If ONI could find out where it was directed, it may be possible for the UNSC to confirm the kill, or finish him off if he survived the transit. The Composer was taken from Installation Zero-Three - that's as good a place as any to start looking.”

Hood’s expression went both _odd_ and _interested_ at that, but the Spartan was dismissed soon after. But the officer came after him as he departed. “Master Chief, do you have a moment?”

“Admiral Hood, sir. Of course.”

“My apologies for the - _lack of professionalism_ in the room back there,” the other man said, jerking his thumb back toward the room where the other brass were still preparing to leave, “A lot of heads are spinning right now, and, well… Very few of our top brass seem to possess the skill of keeping their mouths shut until their brains have figured out what to say."

"Not my place to comment, sir."

The admiral chuckled. "I wish it were, John," he answered, "I wish it were." He waved for the Chief to follow him and continued, "You're home now. We could finally make an officer of you – you'd have admiral without much of an argument from anyone."

"No offense, sir, but 'the Admiral' doesn't have quite the same ring to it."

"Was that a joke, son?" The officer was surprised but pleased. "Didn't think you had it in you. But I found it interesting that you mentioned Installation Zero-Three as the place to start - we’ve received some news." He led the way into another briefing room.

“Ivanoff was established to study Gamma Halo," Hood said as he logged in to the system and brought up some holopanels, "There was a science team on the ground when Didact attacked Ivanoff yesterday. The team was escorted by Spartan Black, who reported the all-clear on the Halo."

"Black Team still operational?"

"Until an hour ago." The admiral initiated the playback of an audio file. They listened, then he continued, "No images to go with the audio, but they describe assailants _appearing from nowhere_ …"

" _Prometheans_ ," the Spartan growled.

"Sounds like." Hood looked up at him. The Chief didn't know what he saw, but it made the man nod. “I know you just got back, but if this is what we think it is, we don’t have time to let you rest up. I’m sending you and a team to Zero-Three ASAP.”

“Yes, sir.” The Spartan heard the vicious edge in his voice but did nothing to suppress it.

* * *

The rest of Blue Team was waiting for him in the hangar, and greeted him as he approached. "I never thought we'd see you again," said Kelly with a hint of a smile. Fred and Linda were pleased as well, and shared her sentiment.

The Chief swiped a "Spartan smile" on his helmet, then said, "You received our orders?”

Fred nodded, frowning. “There’s not much they’ve actually told us on what we’re looking for, only that it’s a mess and to go in expecting no survivors and a fight waiting for us.”

“I’ll brief you on the way.”

So he did. The others quickly recognized that there was something _off_ about him. He didn't really make any special effort to hide it from them while they traveled to Installation Zero-Three - _couldn't_ ; a hundred thousand years away couldn't be hidden away that easily - but they didn't make an attempt to address it, either.

"Gamma Halo Science Envoy, respond," Kelly called over all open channels when they came in range in their Longsword. The survivors on Ivanoff had been trying continuously, but they still had to cover all their bases. The Chief listened over all bands as he guided the bomber past the station. "I repeat, this is Spartan Blue calling Gamma Halo Science Envoy. Do you copy?" After another minute, she said, "Nothing, Chief. No response on any band."

“They said to expect no survivors, but so _fast_?” Fred murmured, “It’s been barely forty-eight hours!”

“The Composer killed six million people in ninety seconds, or _as good as_ killed them,” John replied grimly, “Keep trying until we land, Kelly. I’ll put us down near their last-known.”

He brought the Longsword in for a smooth landing and led the way out onto the surface. The four Spartans fanned out from there and began advancing toward the science team's camp, sweeping the area with their weapons. Linda was the first to spot something and called, "Chief, tracks.” She dropped to one knee and spread her hand for a size comparison. "Is there wildlife on this ring?"

"There shouldn't be," he responded, moving closer to take a look, "Crawlers. At least that's what Cortana said they were called."

"Tracks come from the north, head south," she reported.

"The science team is south," the other Spartan said, "We'll check there first." He took point and led the way through a short canyon. At the bottom of the wash was a cluster of tents and other facilities, all ominously silent and still.

"Awful quiet down here," Fred murmured as they drew closer.

He was right. Nothing moved in the camp, save what was stirred by the hot, dry wind that swept down the canyon.

The warriors split into pairs, John with Kelly and Fred with Linda, and swept the camp. The Chief was investigating one of the experiment tents when Kelly called for his attention. "Chief, corpses."

He came to her. "Ivanoff science." The bodies laid where they'd fallen, stiff with rigor mortis. Their faces were twisted with panic and fear.

" _Blue One."_

"Go ahead, Fred."

" _John… I found them. I found Spartan Black."_

More brothers- and sisters-in-arms lost, murdered by the Didact. John knelt next to the bodies to retrieve their dog tags, answering Fred's question about the Crawlers' capabilities with a "No. This is something else."

He led them back up out of the canyon, saying, "Kelly, send Ops a sitrep. Science and Black are dead, unknown assailant but most likely the Prometheans. We're investigating."

"On it."

"Everyone on me. Let's find the origin of the Crawler tracks and-" Something flicked over his visor, something in a familiar shade of blue, but it was gone just as fast as it had come. John blinked sharply, his HUD degaussing even as he squeezed his eyes shut and blinked rapidly. Then he tensed up, shoving the flicker aside as his anticipation picked up the approach of an enemy. The ghostly image of a Promethean Knight appeared in front of him and slipped into a fighter's stance. "Incoming!"

He'd only detected one Knight, but a total of four materialized around them, one for each of the Spartans. "Weapons free!" he shouted, already firing on the insectoid machines.

One by one, the Knights broke apart under the Spartans' fire. When no others appeared to be forthcoming, Kelly called out the all-clear. The Chief let out a long breath and consciously slowed his heart rate, forced himself to calm down and took up one of the Knights’ suppressors. "Linda, the Crawler tracks."

"This way." She took point, and led them to a depression at the head of the canyon. There was a Forerunner mounting platform at the bottom. "Looks like they came from down there," the sniper reported, "This is where the Composer was buried before Ivanoff dug it up."

If the Twins were there, they would have said, 'Embrace your inner white people in a horror movie and go check it out!' _Gods_ , he missed them all so much that it was almost a physical ache. But he pushed through and hopped down into the void, the other Spartans close behind.

"Everything's perfectly smooth down here," said Kelly as she walked over to him, "Armor telemetry doesn't show anything – wait. I've got eyes on a tunnel, northwest side."

The Chief acknowledged her and signaled them all forward. He paused at the top of the stairs leading down into the tunnel, and lifted his new suppressor before descending one step at a time, the rest of Blue Team following close behind.

The hall led into the Composer’s Abyss, a realm of horrors. Humans, or what had once been humans, writhing in hard-light agony as they were processed into new Prometheans, the path leading right through their midst to a portal open on the far side. Undoubtedly a trap, but they stepped through anyway. 

"We're not on the Halo anymore."

"No, Kelly. Forerunner portal system." He’d never set foot on this planet, but he recognized the spire rising over everything at the center of the city they’d emerged in. This was Clinquant. He’d been here once before in the Parallel, with the Librarian when her Lifeworkers were testing the Composers on Flood victims.

He remembered all too well how that had ended.

"We could be anywhere in the galaxy, John," Fred said as they kept moving deeper into the city. 

The Chief made the executive decision not to tell them the planet's name in case ONI ever found the Absolute Record. He knew for a fact that the planet was listed as a minor civilian world to conceal the location of the Composer’s Forge, and would therefore be of little interest to the higher-ups. "As long as the portal's open, we have a way home," he said simply.

"It's a city," said Fred, "Forerunner architecture."

"There's a light in that tower."

"So whatever killed Spartan Black is probably there."

"Or whoever." John jumped down into the city, the others close behind. 

"'Whoever?'" Fred repeated, "John, is there something you'd like to share?"

"The hit on Earth," he reminded them, "The attack on Ivanoff."

"You think the Didact is here?" Kelly asked, "You said he was dead."

"I said he _could_ have been eliminated," John corrected. He led the way to the central avenue below the spire - where the six Composers waited. Ice dripped down his spine, even before his anticipation whispered, made him whip around. 

"You tread, humans, in the Composer's Forge," said the Didact. In his hand he held an Index.

"Weapons free!" John shouted.

" _Predictable,"_ the Forerunner snarled, using his constraint field to throw the Spartans backwards, "See that which you fear… and attempt to kill it, even when your nightmare has already won."

Knights, Watchers, and Crawlers began spawning all around them, more than the Chief had expected. It played havoc with his anticipation, trying to track targets - there were so many of them, _too_ _many_ – but he kept shooting anyway, flinching when they broke apart under the Spartans' onslaught.

"Oh – oh my. This is quite unacceptable. We had an agreement, Didact," the Monitor of the Composer's Forge as he zipped down from above, "You have manufactured more of your Knights in direct violation of our compact."

"They will dispatch to Requiem soon enough, Monitor," the Promethean responded, directing the machines forward, "and your Installation will be silent once more."

"This is not about the quietude of the Composer's Forge!" the ancilla snapped, "These Prometheans are abominations! Tortured souls, encased against their will-"

The Forerunner grabbed the Monitor, his huge hand almost entirely covering the ancilla’s optical sensor. "So quickly you accuse me of violating our agreement. Where is your portion of this bargain?"

"A-a-arriving now, Didact," Carillon stuttered.

Overhead, a Forerunner Slipspace portal opened, and a Halo – Installation Zero-Three – moved through to sit in orbit. The Didact took one of the Composers and departed for the ring, leaving the Spartans to fight against wave after wave of the Prometheans.

The Monitor zoomed over to them. "Hello, humans. I am 859 Static Carillon, keeper of the Composer's Forge. It is here where the Composer was designed and built.”

“The Didact’s taken one of the Composers,” John growled, kicking a Knight away and shooting it with a scattershot to disperse it.

"Oh, he has an entire Halo now," the ancilla informed him, "He is repairing it, you see, from damages caused by humans, if he is to be believed. Although he seems to blame humans for rather a lot… I understand you have some disagreement with the Didact?"

"He killed millions of humans-"

"Ah, so you do know the origin of these enemies you fight."

"The Knights – they're _the citizens of New Phoenix?!_ ”

It hadn't occurred to him to ask how fast Composed people could be processed into new Knights – it had been less than 48 hours since the New Phoenix Event. Surely it would have taken more time than _that?_

"These humans are freshly Composed," said Carillon, "and therein lies my complaint. Their memories are being added to the whole, as was, of course, the plan when the Composer was being built. But they also bring terror. They bring fear. They bring rage and confusion. This is _unacceptable_. Equally unacceptable to you, I imagine, is the knowledge that once the Halo is repaired, Didact intends to fire it near your home world. He will burn your kind from the universe."

"We need to get back to the portal," John called to the other Spartans, "Beat Didact to the Halo."

"Please understand, I do not care about the Human-Forerunner War," the ancilla informed them, bobbing along next to them, leading the way back to the portal, "It raged centuries before my inception. It may well rage now, and for many centuries more. Erde-Tyrene can burn, and while I will sigh at the loss, I will not care. What I _do_ care about is that he broke our compact. He brought his abominations here. He violated the sanctity of my _home_." The ancilla turned to blast away a few of the Knights leading the pursuit, the energy beam reminding the Chief too much of Spark to be completely comfortable. Still, the ancilla seemed to be on their side for now, so he would reserve judgment.

"Can you deactivate the portal once we're through?" John asked, turning to cover the other Spartans as they moved through the ripple.

"I'll see what I can do," the AI replied, "But enough talk! You must hurry! Go! Stop the Didact! I will keep these monsters at bay!"

Yet as the Spartans reappeared on the Halo Installation, a wide, dark shadow fell over them. "He's moving the Composer into position! Double time, Blue!" the Chief called, and scrambled up the side of the depression after the rest of his team.

The Didact was already there. " _Still_ you persist in surviving," he growled, and used his constraint field to throw the other Spartans away.

John had managed to hide behind a section of the Composer as it was dropped into place. Now he pulled out his combat knife and slipped up behind the Promethean, going for his throat. The other detected him at the last possible second and dodged just enough to avoid a fatal strike. The knife still sank hilt-deep into his right eye, before he grabbed hold of the warrior and forced him away.

"Consistently, the opportunity to eliminate you is presented. Yet foolishly I refuse," he said, " _No more_." And clenched down on his helmet.

_I do not remember my name or my home, but I do remember the game. We played it every day, and I never lost. The game… it’s the only thing I can really remember about the life I had before I met Doctor Halsey. Since then, I have experienced entire lifetimes of combat. Through a hundred thousand years of war and peace and war again, I have always known my fate. I knew someday I would die in battle._

_But_ not today _._

The UNSC might not have had Forerunner-level armor, but it was going to take more than the Promethean's physical strength to crush what armor he had. It held long enough for the rest of Blue Team to fire on him, which was in turn enough to force the Didact to release him. He knocked them all away, and this time they stayed down. Even Spartans could only take so much.

The Promethean pulled the knife from his eye socket and advanced on the Spartans, growling, "We're done here."

"I agree wholeheartedly."

Static Carillon blasted him in the back, causing him to lose his grip on both the knife and the Index and fall to the ground. "He is disabled for the moment. I am initiating emergency teleport. You must quickly regroup."

The Forerunner vanished in a spiral of golden light.

"Ow," Kelly hissed, rolling to her hands and knees, then pushed herself upright through sheer force of will, "Linda, you okay?"

"Battered, bruised, but I'm alive," she replied, also getting to her feet.

"Okay, John, talk to me."

"Ears are ringing," he answered, shivering a little - his body was following a hundred thousand years of imprinted instinct, trying to knit back together with the Flood supercells, but there was no infection to provide the impetus. "Armor's power cycling. Just a second longer." At last, he shook it off and got to his feet. His helmet had withstood the force of the Didact's assault, but the visor glass had not, disabling his HUD. "Helmet's fused on," he said, giving it a tug, "Going to take a torch to remove it."

"But you can operate as is?"

"Not much choice."

"If you are going to fight a Warrior Servant, you must _not_ give him the opportunity to attune his armor to your weapons!" Carillon advised.

"Where is the Didact now?"

"I suppose I must admit I have intentionally committed a severe tactical error… I have placed him in the most secure location on the Halo."

"The Control Room," said the Chief.

"Quite."

"Why would you-" Kelly began, before the Monitor cut her off.

"It was that, or watch him finish slaughtering you. You would be dead, and he would still reach the control room. I have expedited the inevitable by skipping the preventable."

John spotted the Index on the ground and limped over to pick it up. "You said his armor had adapted to our weapons. I know a weapon he can't adapt to."

* * *

"…too simple. There is something I do not yet comprehend."

"You're right." John approached the Promethean through the blast doors.

"Where are your fellows?"

"They went ahead to our ship," the Spartan answered, "This is between me and you."

"You carry no weapon."

"I _am_ a weapon," he said, "and I carry _yours_." He lifted the Index. "I thought we might take a moment to talk."

" _Diplomacy?_ From _you?"_

"You killed my partner _._ You killed _millions_ of humans. You tried to kill _me._ Earlier you said that when you 'see that which you fear and attempt to kill it,' did it ever occur to you that maybe you feared humanity?" He walked past the Didact to the Control Panel. "I've tried to put you out of your misery with blades, guns, explosives, by knocking you into Slipspace… and none of it works." He inserted the Index into the panel. "But I bet this does."

"You would fire the Halo just to eliminate me?"

“If that's what it took," John affirmed, "But then Carillon reminded me that would also kill all life within twenty-five thousand light years, so he suggested a better plan."

"What game are you playing, human?" the Forerunner demanded.

"Two-step process. The activation sequence turns off safety protocols," he answered, moving over to the doorway to brace himself, "allowing Carillon to eject panels of the Halo, even if they have active life forms currently on them." John held on tight as the g-forces began to increase with their fall toward Clinquant. His flesh crawled with revulsion and instinctive fear at the rising hum of the Halo, but Carillon was true to his word and pulled him out before the ring killed him.

Yet in the place between places, after dematerialization but before _re_ -materialization, he heard Cortana's voice.

_:John…:_

"All went according to plan," the ancilla reported when they appeared on the Spartans' Longsword, "There were severe gravimetric anomalies following the ring ejection. Had I not taken a moment to stabilize the ring, it would be lost." He turned to the Spartan. "The Control Room's remaining sensors indicate that you were successful in your endeavor. The Didact has been Composed and compartmentalized."

He sighed. "Thank you."

"No, thank _you,_ " the Monitor replied, "After endless years overseeing a dead facility, I have found new meaning through you. Goodbye, Reclaimers. I take the Halo now for repairs and safe hiding."

The AI vanished in the golden spirals of Forerunner teleportation.

"Wait, taking the Halo where?" Fred asked, "Where's he taking it?"

* * *

"We don't know where it went, Admiral Hood."

"Chief, you sound like you think you failed. You got the Didact. That's a _damn fine_ day's work."

"I suspect it is safest to call him 'contained.'"

Lord Hood waved it off. "How about you? You okay, son?"

"Sir, yes, sir."

"Well, I'm ordering Blue Team to take some R&R."

"Sir?"

"You've had a rough couple of years, John-"

'A _couple?_ '

"Take off the armor. Kick up your feet. Relax."

John didn't know what to say to that. It had never occurred to him to rest now that he was back with the UNSC. But then, given the fact that he didn't expect to come back at _all_ , up until those last few days in the Parallel, that wasn't really a surprise.

Hood dismissed him, and he returned to where the rest of Blue Team waited. Fred saw him first, and asked, “What’d Hood say?”

The Spartan didn't know what _he_ was going to say until he said it, but once he did, it felt like the only thing he could do. “Gave the all clear,” he said, “We’re going back to work.” As much as he no longer trusted them, he was _sure_ ONI had work for them.

“Where to this time?” Kelly asked, pulling on her helmet.

“Anywhere we’re needed.”

* * *

//ONI EYES ONLY

//TRANSCRIPT DATE: <<REDACTED>>

//CONVERSATION MEMBERS: <<REDACTED>>

<<REDACTED>> 1: Hood’s freaking out. He just heard 117 reassigned himself.

<<REDACTED>> 2: Heh. Hood’s always the last to know these days. Poor old man.

<<REDACTED>> 1: What’s he doing?

<<REDACTED>> 2: Chief? Exactly what the psych eval said he’d do. Refusing to stop. Taking one mission after another.

<<REDACTED>> 1: Something’s gotta give, right? He can’t keep doing this to himself forever.

<<REDACTED>> 2: Yeah, but if he wants to destroy himself... hell, who’s going to stop _him_?


	8. Interlude: Proof of Existence

When they were on Earth for a few short days, John got permission to leave base for an old library nearby. Libraries with physical books were rare nowadays, rarer than gold or platinum. But since the digital version seemed to be inaccessible (or intentionally hidden), it was real books he wanted - and real books he’d found. He’d put in a request in the planetary network, looking, and before Blue Team’s most recent mission, he’d been contacted by a spunky young librarian, saying that they had a well-preserved copy of the series he wanted, held for over a hundred years at the request of an anonymous donor.

His eyes had drifted shut at that. If that garbage autobiographical series he’d written in the Parallel was here, then the _Fleet_ was, too. They must have been the ones who’d had it held for him. But _why hadn’t they come?_

No answers presented themselves immediately, but perhaps there would be something - a message, waiting for him in the pages of his life.

* * *

This librarian was _tiny_ , five foot nothing if that, barely coming up to the bottom of his ribcage, with the most vibrant pink hair he’d ever seen. It actually hurt his eyes a little looking at it, but he didn't let it show, silently following her through the atmospherically-sealed stacks to one of a handful of rooms where the ancient books could be safely handled. 

“Printed in 2420,” the librarian was saying cheerfully - she reminded him of Joyeuse, but thinking of his daughter made his chest go tight. “But it’s not wood pulp paper like most books were back in modern times - mostly cloth fibers, like medieval books; no acid, so the pages haven’t degraded. Whoever had it made wanted it to last. I don't have any gloves that’ll fit you, so you’re gonna have to use-”

“I have gloves,” John interrupted softly, pulling the sealed package from a pocket in his fatigues, “The UNSC makes them special for us – it doesn’t happen _that_ often, but sometimes we need them.”

She blinked, then grinned. “Good. I like a man who comes prepared. Now, remember, it’s _old as balls_ , okay? Be gentle when I bring it to you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He sped-read through most of it - no one had changed anything, though some sections about the post-Human-Covenant War prosperity and the founding of the Fourth Ecumene had been added in. And then-

 _The_ Fleet _transitioned back to realspace somewhere else. Calling it a “transition” was putting it mildly - it was more of an out-of-control tumble, and more than one ship collided with several of the others before the ancillae got them back under control and straightened them out._

_“Is this it?” Ferial asked, leaning over her shoulder to better see one of the info stations on the bridge, “Is this the place?”_

**_Where are they?!_ **

_Nethalia jolted at the Flood’s voice. No one had heard from it in centuries - they had all thought it long gone, long subsumed by the Commander. “What?!” she shouted at it._

**_Where are they?!_** _it demanded, **They are not here, they have vanished - where have they gone?!**_

_Ice poured through her, and she whirled around only a second before everyone else did._

_The Commander was_ gone _, his armor shell slumped to the deck, and Lady Cortana’s empty flesh lay next to it, unmoving save for involuntary processes, unresponsive even as Moons-of-Evening-Star raced to her side and bent over her._

_‘Assessment!’ the Forerunner demanded over their collective connection._

_‘Nethalia…’ Silver-Moon said softly, ‘Look.’_

_The Warrior-Servant turned again._

_Like the rest of the_ Fleet _, the walls of the_ Perfect Storm _’s bridge projected an unrestricted view of the surrounding space, when someone requested it. Silver-Moon had._

 _The_ Fleet _looked out over the ruins of Maethrillian, ships and parts of ships and parts of the planet and parts of_ people _torn asunder and left adrift. She remembered well how the planet had looked when they had first returned after the Firing, but there was something different about it this time._

_“What is left of the gravity well has not yet begun to pull the greater part of the debris in,” said Winterspell, “I estimate that we have arrived roughly a hundred to a hundred and fifty years Post-Cataclysm.”_

**_Then where are they?_ ** _the Flood demanded, **Where is the other me and our wife?!**_

_“If this is pretty much immediately Post-Firing, cosmically speaking,” said Joyeuse - and good, the Commander’s and Her Grace’s children were still here, that was something, “then_ they _must have returned to their proper place in time - the moment the Enemy took them._ We’re _the ones who’ve been displaced.”_

 _‘Then what should we do?’ Fred-104 asked, speaking on behalf of not just the Spartans but the entire_ Fleet _._

 _In truth, ‘High Commander’ was a mostly ceremonial title, like most of the ‘ranks’ in the_ Fleet _. In ordinary circumstances, everyone just reported directly to their Gravemind and their fellows, linked as they were to everyone else every second of every day. But these weren't ordinary circumstances, so as the highest-ranking officer in the_ Fleet _, it fell to Nethalia to assume command in their Commander’s absence. ‘The only thing we can do,’ she answered the Spartan, ‘Rebuild, fight our battles, and wait for our Commander and Her Grace to return.’_

A bullshit ‘About the Author’ page followed, but the book wasn't done.

_If she needed proof that their world was different than this one, Nethalia needed look no further._

_With no traffic anywhere in the galaxy - or indeed anywhere in the_ entire Local Group _\- it was easy for even the_ Perfect Storm _, massive battleship that she was, to follow the path of the Forerunners who’d survived the Forerunner-Flood War. They, too, had been following their predecessors, in a way; though they had not taken up residence near the Spider, where their fellows had once dwelled, they_ had _journeyed to Path Kethona and scattered themselves through its stars, distant enough from each other that their children would never see another Forerunner apart from their own siblings, if they had any._

_This one did. The boy saw her first, and nudged his sister, who looked up from where she’d been planting seeds in the rows carefully carved through the valley’s mustard-yellow soil. The girl straightened, and for a moment, Nethalia was reminded of Joyeuse and Durandal while they had been young. After a moment of watching her pick her way around the edge of their field, they both turned and ran for the entrance to their underground home._

_The Warrior-Servant didn't run after them, maintaining her steady pace along the edge of the field._

_Barely a minute passed before Chant-to-Green appeared in the doorway of the house, lifting a hand to shade her eyes from the sun, which was low on the horizon behind the other Forerunner. Bornstellar was right behind her, and he recognized her first. The Ur-Didact’s knowledge was still strong in him, because his eyes went wide, mouth falling open in fearful surprise._

_She had known even without his reaction that this world’s version of her was long dead. The whole_ Fleet _was, with no Spartan-Gravemind to warn them, and gather them to fight._

_After a moment, Bornstellar shook off his shock and stepped around Chant to come out and meet her. Nethalia slowed her pace, and met him a little ways from the house. They looked each other over for a moment, before she said, “Hello, father-in-law. I imagine that there is much news we need to share.”_

_After the sun had set and the children had gone to bed, the adult Forerunners talked late into the night, the other two occasionally asking questions but for the most part listening as she told her story. Then, she listened to their own._

_Things were not so different as they might have been. Still, it would no doubt be a comfort to the Commander to know that even though they had only saved a few thousand Forerunners total in their world, it was still more than fifty times the number of survivors in this one._

_The_ Fleet _murmured in the back of her mind. It was a comfort to them, too._

_At last, even Chant was too weary to continue and went to bed. But sleep didn't come for Bornstellar, and in her armor Nethalia had no real need of it, though she had long since come to understand the pleasure of rest. They sat in silence under the stars for a long time; her ancilla told her it was almost a local hour before Bornstellar spoke again. “What will you do?”_

_“Go back,” she answered without hesitation, then said again, “and wait for our Commander and Her Grace to return.”_

_“And the others?” He gestured toward the sky, where the_ Storm _was visible at the Lagrange point between the moon they were on and the gas giant it orbited._

_“They are with me in this. There is no other way for us to be.”_

_Even the Flood was in agreement. It wanted its Spartan back, and their beloved wife. If that meant pulling a Rip Van Winkle and sleeping for a hundred thousand years until his return, so be it._

_Bornstellar sighed softly, and smiled. “_ Audacity _is in the mountains east of here. You said the Librarian gave her into your keeping, as a gift for the Reclaimers when they ‘came of age’. Let it be so here as well.”_

From there, the series jumped to the next book, which was an observation and first-contact from the Origin that devolved into something of a political thriller where the other Spartans were – surprise, surprise – just as politically inept as John was. Beyond that was the Reaving, which had been less intense without the Primordial perverting the Bellogeri and inciting the violence but much longer than the first, and so still just as bad. He read the series in full before letting the book slip closed. Then he returned it and departed in silence.

* * *

“Chief! There you are. Got a package for you.”

John paused. A package? For _him_? Could it be-? “From who?” he asked, turning to face the other man.

The ONI grunt squinted at the text on the box. “Eye mehd- meh-doo-ee-?”

“I Medui Cîr.” The man had gotten the pronunciation reasonably close, close enough for him to guess, to recognize the words for what they actually were: literally ‘The End Ships’, in the Common Tongue of the Third and Fourth Ecumenes. 

A more meaningful translation was _The Last Fleet._

“Thank you.” He accepted the package. It was small, a simple old-style cardboard box maybe the length of his hand on all of its sides. On the top was the (false) return address for the _Fleet_ and “S-117 ℅ UNSC”, along with the ONI “CLEARED” stamp. How it had actually made its way to him he had no idea, but it wouldn't take much to guess. He must have triggered something, going to look at the books, or maybe they just had eyes on him now. Maybe the package had even been waiting for him since the Battle of the Ark.

_I’m watching you, Wazowski. Always watching._

He tucked the package under his arm with the rest of the equipment he was carrying, nodded to the other soldier, and departed, ignoring the man’s slightly disappointed look at not getting to see the box’s contents. Perhaps he would have opened it then and there if he had been sure of what it contained, if only to prevent speculation that was sure to follow - but he didn’t know, so he kept it sealed.

The Spartan dropped off the equipment he had been transporting with the science team that requested it and headed to the ship’s observation deck, where he had taken to spending much of his free time, such as it was. Once the door hissed shut behind him, he sat down on one of the benches, pulled out his combat knife, and carefully slit the tape holding it shut. Then he tipped the contents of the box into his hand.

A tightly coiled ball of wire rolled out onto his palm. It was a near-perfect sphere about the size of a plasma grenade, and even for solid metal, it felt oddly heavy. John frowned and held it up to get a closer look - and the light of the system’s sun rippled iridescently off the strange material in a _very_ familiar manner.

His eyes went wide, breath catching in his throat.

_A Precursor star road._

He set the box down and rotated the star road in his hands to view it from all sides. That certainly explained the weight of it; as much of it as possible was folded away into another dimension, but it still needed a certain amount of mass to maintain its local tether to realspace. But he’d never heard of one being folded down so _small_ , small enough to be carried in one hand with relative ease. The enemy Gravemind had favored massive constructions to crush Forerunner fleets and even entire planets in its grasp, and though he could sense the roads with great accuracy and manipulate them to an extent, the Spartan had never fully mastered the art before the Firing of the Array had wiped out all Precursor architecture and eliminated any chance of doing so.

But that begged the question. The Halo Array had been fired in this world as well, destroying the _vast_ majority of said Precursor constructs - _so where had this star road come from?_

And possibly more importantly, could he still manipulate it? _Should_ he? Most people could sense when they were active nearby… but he needed to know.

John closed his eyes and meditated for a moment, letting his mind empty of grief and pain and the beginning aches in his body. Then he bounced the sphere into the air and thought, _:Float.:_

And it did. The star road stopped in midair and hung suspended over his hand, the faintest warp of space around it, just _barely_ visible even to his enhanced eyes.

_:Unwind. Fold into realspace.:_

And it did. It unspooled before his eyes, the “wire” thickening and lengthening until it was dozens of meters long and as big around as his wrist, filling most of the space on the deck. It shimmered and rolled gently along with the currents of its neural physics, rippling through the space like a ribbon through water. He watched it move, ran his hands over the smooth, featureless metal; it was untouched, unbroken, as perfect as the day it had been made millions of years ago.

John sighed with more than a little relief. It was a valuable weapon to have in case of emergencies, but he couldn't keep it out like this - out or active. If someone felt it...

_:Fold away. Rewind.:_

The star road shrank and wound back up again into the same tight ball as before. Unless someone got _really_ close, they would probably think it was just wire, like he had initially. He held out his hand, and it dropped onto his palm. He squeezed it for a moment - hard enough that his fingers ached - then said, “Who’s on duty?”

In an instant, a familiar ancilla appeared on the plinth nearby. One he knew well, and cared for dearly.

“A _new hand_ touches the beacon!”

“We are _not_ starting that shit again, Joyeuse.”

The ancilla laughed brightly and smiled wide. “Hi, Dad.” 

He came over to kneel next to the pedestal. “You got our message?”

She nodded, grief flashing across her normally so cheerful face. “Too late. We tried to muster in time, but…” She shook her head. “By the time even _one_ of the destroyers was ready to go, you and the Didact were fighting on the light bridge.”

John sighed. “What happened, happened,” he said, trying not to let his grief show, “But it’s good to know you all are here.”

Joyeuse frowned, eyeing him intently. “It’s more than that, though.”

As perceptive as her mother. “It’s been a hundred thousand years since I’ve been alone in my own head, Joy,” he said dryly, “It’s too _quiet_. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“Oh! Well _that_ I can do something about. I can patch you in to our COM channels for now, and have a quantum COMlink shipped to you.”

“That would be perfect, thank you. But there’s something we need to do as well, and no one else can know about it.”

“ _Ooh_ , keeping secrets? You know that’s impossible with the _Fleet_.”

“It’s not the _Fleet_ I want it secret from. Have you read the report about what the Librarian did to me on Genesis?”

“Of course.”

“She wasn't the only one who made some modifications. Cortana improved on the Gultanr’s predictive resonance; I need you to help me with the infirmary so we can take some scans and draw blood to ship back for integration. And if you can, bring one of the corvettes in on standby, just in case I need a quick escape. I don't know what might happen.”

“You got it.”

* * *

_Dig me out, dig me out,  
Don't pull me towards the light.  
I see no afterlife,   
I've got one foot in the grave.  
Dig me out, dig me out,   
I see no other side.  
No demons left to fight,   
I've got one foot in the grave.  
  
I've got one foot in the grave…_

-“One Foot in the Grave”, Letters from the Fire ( _Worth the Pain_ )

* * *

I Medui Cîr - “ih mehdwee keer”


	9. Seven: Destiny for Two

_You are not bound to loss and silence, for you are not bound to the circles of this world…_

The Chief sat back in the pilot’s seat of the Pelican for a moment and just breathed. It was getting hard to do by the day; he didn't have much time left, but it had already been over a year since he returned. It was more than some had received. Fortunately Joyeuse hadn't questioned when he asked her for the Lifeworker nanomachine stim shots for healing, so it wasn't nearly as bad as it might have been otherwise.

Still… He pressed a hand against his stomach and palpated his flesh through the armor. No, not long at all. Two, maybe three weeks before he couldn't hide any longer.

This was probably going to be his last mission for the UNSC.

He pulled his helmet on, sealed it, and fiddled with the oxygen levels until he could breathe easy. But as he did so, there was another flicker of blue across his HUD before it degaussed. He made a note for Joyeuse - she’d been trying to track the unusual data bursts in between running intel for his ops - but pushed it away, tapping a key to open a COM channel and saying, “Sierra-117 to _Infinity_ , Blue Team has located _Argent Moon_. Signs of hostile activity, but she’s still here.”

 _“Copy that, 117,”_ was the reply, _“Eliminate all hostiles, secure_ Argent Moon _. You may deploy when ready.”_

“Affirmative, _Infinity_. 117 out.” He flipped a few switches to turn on the autopilot and autosentry. “Joyeuse? You ready?”

_“Always, Dad.”_

He visually swept their surroundings until his anticipation saw what his actual eyes could not: a Forerunner stealth corvette, the _Nighthawk_ , gliding alongside the Pelican for the moment, hidden from sight by active camouflage even the _Infinity_ 's sensors couldn't detect. When the Spartans deployed, they would stand off at a safe distance for observation and support.

He nodded in the ship’s direction, knowing they would see, then swung the Pelican around so the deployment bay faced _Argent Moon_ , and got up to join the rest of his team in the bay.

He missed the Parallel Spartans, but it was nice being back together with his own Spartan team, too.

“Here you go.” Kelly passed him his assault rifle.

“Thanks, Kelly. Everyone ready?”

“Affirmative,” Linda answered, and hit the switch to open the bay.

 _“Go go gadget scopes!”_ Kenera whispered in his ear.

The Chief closed off his external speakers for just a moment. “Settle down,” he said with a smile.

As he stepped up next to Linda, Fred grabbed his arm. “You good?” the other Spartan asked.

His concern was appreciated but unnecessary. The Chief had fought on in a worse physical and mental state than this, and he could - and would - do so again. But... **We love only once. There will be no other.** And with potentially (most likely) a near eternity stretching out ahead of him, without her...

He pushed it from his mind and nodded, and Fred released him, though he clearly didn't believe him. The Spartan could still read his brother, knew that he wasn't willing to let this go, but they both knew this was neither the time nor the place.

They all stepped up to the edge of the deployment bay and activated their thrusters. “Blue Team,” the Chief said when they had the best angle they were going to get, “fall out.”

The Spartans pushed off from the Pelican and fired their thrusters, steering through the asteroid field that surrounded the station. As they closed in, all four of them drew and leveled their weapons, though only the Chief fired to break the viewport glass, letting them burst into the station.

There were Storm Covenant inside, of course. All of the Sangheili drew their plasma swords and prepared to engage – but then the bay began to _really_ depressurize, the atmosphere rushing outward into the void. The Spartans fired their thrusters again and activated their mag boots to hold them fast to the deck. The Sangheili weren't prepared, and so were dragged out into space before a barricade slammed up to seal off the breach. " _Hull breach contained,"_ said the station's automated system in an unusually cheerful voice, " _Repressurization of affected areas completed_."

"What do we know about _Argent Moon_?" Fred asked as they began their advance.

"ONI research station," Linda answered, "Went dark nineteen months ago. Last week Kig-Yar scavengers found it, and sold the find to Jul 'Mdama's people."

"We clear the Covenant and return this station to ONI," said the Chief.

"Fastest route to retrieval is to seize Central Control," Kelly reported, "Eliminate hostiles between here and then, then deactivate gravity and life support systems."

"Ship data center is just ahead. We can pull down _Argent Moon_ 's schematics there."

They headed out onto an observation platform to bypass a locked hatch. "Looks like they were designing a new stealth-class vessel."

 _“And a_ highly _**toxic** bioweapon that escaped containment and killed off all the station personnel,”_ Joyeuse said only to him, appearing in a small vidscreen on his HUD, _“We’ve taken the liberty of shutting down Intrepid Eye as well - she was responsible for the bioweapon and its containment breach.”_

“Is she onboard?”

 _“Not anymore. The Storm Covenant took her, but Nethalia made the decision to terminate her, given everything that she did - and was willing to do - to ‘prepare humanity for the Mantle’._ _I can have a briefing prepared for you, if you'd like._ _”_

John made a face and flashed an agreement at her. “The Mantle” was still such bullshit.

"They lost years of expensive R&D with this station," Kelly said.

They headed through another hall and down a short ramp. This hatch opened at their approach and let them into a chamber where two Grunts were downloading data from the station. The Chief signaled Kelly, then both of them sprinted forward and assassinated the aliens. “Joyeuse, get into the systems and download everything you can, then wipe it. If Intrepid Eye was planning on using this bioweapon, she had to have a way to prevent it from targeting those she favored; we all might need it if something happens. But avoid compromising yourself at all costs.”

 _“_ Please _, Dad. You know who my mother is.”_ She flipped her hair over a shoulder and rolled her eyes, then vanished from his HUD. But as she went, there was another brief blue flash - the only reason he caught it at all was because his HUD degaussed afterwards.

The super soldiers continued moving through the hatches and halls, killing all the Storm Covenant that stood in their way. Eventually they reached the data center. "We've got a complete set of datasec keys for the station," Linda said as the Chief aimed for the main console, "We should be able to pull down _Argent Moon_ 's schematics and find a path to Central Control."

Fred analyzed the map the other man pulled up, then said, "Should be a straight shot to Central Control through the assembly bay ahead." After a moment more, he added, "There're still Prowlers in the hangar bays. Nobody from ONI got out of here alive, did they?"

"No," Linda answered, short and to the point.

The Chief heard the other Linda hum in agreement over the COM, and he couldn't help a small smile. ‘The more things change…’ Aloud, he said, "Let's go," and led the way into the next hall, where a lift stood empty. Once they were all aboard, John started them down.

"Central Control's straight across this bay."

"Everything's ripped up," Linda commented.

"They must be stripping the experimental ship for parts," the other woman agreed, peering down at the ship in question.

"Scavengers," Fred grunted, "taking what supplies they can find. The Covenant's war against the Arbiter must not be going well."

"Jul 'Mdama is a lot of things," Linda agreed, "but he's no Prophet."

The Spartans descended to the lower level, smashed through a grating, and dropped even further to the deck below. The Covenant heard them coming and were waiting for them, and the four of them engaged the aliens, slaying the Grunts with ease before moving on to the Jackals and Elites. Their bodies dropped to the decks in spades, and the humans kept moving across the bay, dodging fire and leaping from platform to platform, taking out any aliens that got between them and their goal.

"So this station was just drifting?" Fred asked with a slight grunt as he threw an Elite off a ledge, "For two years?"

"Apparently," Linda answered.

"How does an asset that big go missing for that long?"

"Its location was not consistent with expected drift patterns."

"Meaning…?"

" _Someone_ didn't want it to be found, and sent it in a direction no one would expect."

"There's a bioweapon out of containment on the station," John answered their unspoken question, "Though if the Covenant is anything to go by, it's now inert, or it hasn't had time to kill them yet. The station AI steered it away from known colonies before he shut down.

"Central Control is through those doors," They entered another hallway after clearing the last of the Storm Covenant. He led the way across the catwalk, only to jerk back when his anticipation picked up on the destructive arrival of the Hunter. The Spartan dodged back, bringing his weapon up to bear – but the Mgalekgolo got there first and slammed its massive shield down onto the catwalk. The metal just couldn't take that level of punishment. The walk and the pipes under it gave way, sending him plunging down through the mist below.

* * *

John woke in what looked like ruins made of dark, almost oily stone at first glance. He recognized the onset of a vision, but something was different about this one, something – _real._ It felt as if he was actually standing in the ruins, rather than observing from the outside. Then he realized where he was, and shot to his feet. “Domain? Are you there?”

_:Wait:._

“‘Wait?’” he repeated, frowning, “What’s going on? I hadn't thought you’d be active yet - you weren't in the Parallel, not until the very tail end, right before we left for here.”

 _:Wait:,_ it said again, then turned its broken attention elsewhere. Still, the Spartan heard it say, _:This way, over here:._

It was leading something to him through the ruins of its databanks. He tensed, lifted his weapon to a ready position, turned it into a suppressor with just a thought but didn't level it just yet. He’d been something like friends with the other Domain; he hoped that this one wasn't an enemy.

He saw blue, and his jaw dropped, eyes going wide.

_“Cortana?!”_

“John!” she cried, and sprinted to him, nearly throwing herself into his arms. He dropped his rifle in a heartbeat to catch her and hold her close.

“ _Melintyë, enedhen,_ ” he gasped. _I love you, my heart._ Even as he bent to press their foreheads together, he knew he was squeezing tight enough to hurt, but he couldn't stop himself. Didn't want to, since she was clutching back just as tight _._

“ _Melintyë acca,”_ she returned. _I love you too._ But then she pulled back, looking scared, anxious, _hunted_. “John,” she said, looking him dead in the eye, “I need you.”

“Where? What’s going on?”

“There’s no time to explain, not fully,” she answered shaking her head, then looking back up, “ _Meridian_. What happened on Oban, Conrad’s Point, Ursa IV - it’s all connected. The next one’s on Meridian - it’ll bring you to where I am. _Please_ , I need you!”

“I’m already on my way,” he told her, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

But then the Domain said, _:Coming!:_ and the AI’s panic returned at once.

“Go!” John stepped back from her and called his suppressor back to his hand, “I’ll be with you soon. Go!”

She disappeared into the ruins, and he took cover, then whipped back to face the way she’d come - only to be struck dumb a second time.

 _“You!”_ the Didact roared, eyes blazing as he stepped from the darkness, “I should have known it would be _you_ she sought - how dare you profane the Domain with your presence!”

John squeezed the trigger, only to have a dozen Knights swarm him all at once, led by another ancilla like them. They drove him back away from the corrupted Warrior-Servant. “Kill him!” the Forerunner shouted at them - but before they could try, the Domain said, _:Haste!:_ and cut their connection.

He came out of the Domain just as suddenly as he went in, gasping for breath. He was back on the _Argent Moon_ , but the sharpness of the disconnect left him confused, disoriented, off-balance.

"Chief… what's wrong?"

The rest of Blue Team had found him. He let Kelly and Fred help him back to his feet, then weighed his options. In the end, there really was only one.

“Joyeuse, patch yourself into TEAMCOM.”

 _“What’s up, Dad?”_ she responded immediately, _“You dropped out of contact there for a second - even we couldn't get a lock on you.”_

The other Spartans jolted at the sudden voice in their ears. Of all the things they had expected, a cheerful female voice calling the Chief _Dad_ probably wasn't it.

“What _happened_ is that Cortana just contacted me from the Domain.” He heard his daughter inhale sharply, and knew she had to be relaying his words to the rest of the _Fleet_ as well, her or someone else who was with her on the _Nighthawk_. “And she’s not alone - the Didact is out of containment, in there with her, _chasing_ her, with some other unknown ancilla. I want to know what happened on Oban, Conrad’s Point, and Ursa IV _right now_ \- she said it’s connected, probably to him, and ‘the next one’s on Meridian.’”

_“Researching now. You finish up your mission, and I’ll get everything I can find ready for you.”_

“Acknowledged. Have the _Nighthawk_ ready to extract us.”

 _“Understood.”_ Joyeuse snapped off.

“Chief…” Kelly started, but trailed off.

“I’ll explain what I can on the way, but there’s a reason I haven't said anything before - to _anyone_ , not just you. It’s all pretty unbelievable, even for us. Frederic, get us back on course for Central Control." He flipped on his armor's flashlight with a silent command.

"Bringing up schematics," the other man reported, "There's an elevator we can use, but access is four levels down."

"Mark a path," the Chief instructed, and led them all down into the station's service tunnels, saying, "While Cortana and I were on Alpha Halo, I had an accident with the Flood. When we were doing our run through the _Autumn_ , trying to detonate, the parasite got the better of me. My shields went down, and an Infection Pod got on my back, attacked my neck. It sliced through the undersuit, pierced my skin – but Cortana rerouted the energy for my shields when they started to recharge and popped the damned thing before it could fully infect me.

"But I guess some Flood cells still got inside and had enough of a presence to catch the enemy Gravemind's attention, because while we were adrift on the _Dawn_ … well. Things only got crazier from there."

The tunnels were filled with Grunts, but the Spartans cleared them out and reached a service supply room. There some stealth Sangheili joined them, but they didn't cause much more trouble than their non-stealth fellows before the Spartans killed them and moved on.

“…and then Cortana and I got married and had two biological children to add to our hundred thousand adopted ones who call us ‘Mom and Dad’ when it really isn’t appropriate. There was political intrigue involved in that, but it’s mostly irrelevant. But then the Gultanr had a vision of danger _here_ , in _this_ universe, so the two of us came home, and everyone else followed.”

Fred said, “ _Jesus fuck._ ”

“That about sums it up, yeah.”

"Meridian's a backwater," Kelly said, "If Cortana's really still active, what's she doing so far out on the frontier? And 'next one' _what_?"

“That’s what Joyeuse is finding out.”

The Spartans continued through the service corridors, no longer arguing about letting John take point after they paused briefly to let him show that his anticipation let him - not _match Kelly’s speed_ , but definitely _keep up with her_ , making up for his slowness by reading her moves in advance and countering her actions before she’d even begun to move. He took out the suicide Grunts the foresight picked up the instant they rounded the corners ahead of them - when the tunnel started creaking and groaning alarmingly as something followed them along outside the walls. "Hunters," the Chief said just before one slammed its shield against a fiberglass barrier, but as he’d seen, the viewport didn't yield. "They're keeping pace with us."

The tunnels continued to rattle under the Mgalekgolo's blows as the humans sprinted ahead. The sounds faded away for a time – right before they encountered more Kig-Yar and suicide Unggoy. But the noises picked back up again as they continued down.

In another service supply room, they encountered more Grunts and Jackals, this time led by a zealot with a plasma sword. John slipped around and knifed the Sangheili from behind while the other Spartans took care of the rest.

The banging of the Hunters resumed again as they passed Level Three and continued down toward Level Four. As a hatch slid open in front of them, Kelly said, "Covenant battle net just lit up."

"Covenant ships exiting Slipspace," John reported, spotting the ships before they'd even emerged.

"We're outnumbered here, Chief. A few thousand to one."

He agreed with Fred's assessment, but- "Surrendering _Argent Moon_ is not an option."

"Neither is fighting half the Covenant in close quarters," Linda interjected.

"Then forget about reaching Central Control," he answered her, "The plan changes to asset denial. We scuttle the _Argent Moon_."

"Ship's engine core is near here," Fred reported, "Same plan as the _Perpetual Devotion_?"

"We overload the reactor and evac," he agreed, elaborating for Linda, who hadn't been there, "Ship explodes, destroying any ships nearby. As an added bonus, it gets rid of the bioweapon, too."

"The reactor is below the lab just ahead," Fred informed them, "We can use air ducts to travel between them. Marking the access panel."

John keyed in the code and stepped onto an observation lift. As he did so, Joyeuse came back over the line. _“Dad, there’s chatter about Sali 'Nyon and Jul 'Mdama on Covenant COMs. The new arrivals say the former's dead, and the latter's in UNSC custody."_

" _What?_ " Fred said for all of them, his head snapping up, "'Mdama’s been _captured? Alive?!_"

_“Looks like it.”_

They reached the ground floor of the lab before the ancilla could give them more details. "More Hunters…" John growled, seeing the squirming of the Lekgolo that made up the larger beasts even before they fell from above to join back together in the armor on the floor.

"They're strong but slow,” Fred said, “We can use the lab equipment to keep above them and out of their reach.”

"Agreed."

The closest Hunter slammed its gun and shield against the glass viewport even as the hatches to the lift slid open. "Weapons free," John ordered, and sprinted for the nearest lab deck, jumping up and hauling himself up out of the way of an attack. He turned to fire back down at the Hunter near the lift, ducking to evade the fuel rod round it shot back at him.

As usual, Kelly played the rabbit, making the Mgalekgolo turn their backs to the other Spartans. It gave them the same opportunity it always did, letting them fire at their exposed flesh. John signaled for them to focus fire on the one nearer to their sister. When it fell, the other roared and tried to charge Kelly, but she was far enough away that she had more than enough time to hit her thrusters and dart out of its path. The Hunter's rage blinded it such that the Spartans were able to defeat it the exact same way as before.

The four of them continued their advance through the station, though John could feel himself beginning to flag. "Schematics show a path to the reactor through here," Fred said as they arrived at a vent labeled ‘Override Junction.’ As they dropped through it, he continued, "The reactor room is just ahead. We can light this fuse and bolt."

"No salvage for the Covenant," Linda affirmed.

"Right, let's go," Kelly agreed.

John slammed through another barricade, and jumped down to kill a pair of Jackals. "Reactor controls are on the far side of the room. Eliminate the Covenant forces and get to those controls," he ordered, sprinting forward with Kelly to engage a Sangheili on a platform spanning one side of the room.

Despite not being actively maintained for more than a year and a half, the reactor was still running, still intact, and its shielding was still up to code, absorbing fire from the gunfight without so much as a crack, for which the Spartans were immensely grateful. They all had had missions go even more pear-shaped than this one already was, so it was nice to have something going at least a little bit right for once.

The super soldiers blew through the Covenant line with the devastation that had earned them the name _Demons_. "Area's clear," Kelly called at last, "Initiate the overload."

John keyed in the code, and a pulse of energy shook the room. " _Reactor failsafe disarmed,_ " the system informed them, " _Failure imminent._ "

"Got it. Reactor's overloading. Move for the hangar bay-"

" _Containment protocol initiated."_

"Containment…?"

"The station's gonna try to cool the reactor," Fred realized, following John as he made his way back toward the reactor cylinder.

"I guess the UNSC has better reactor safety protocol than the Covenant," Kelly chuckled.

"They should, given how many times they've seen us destroy ships that way," John agreed, smiling briefly before sobering, "but we need to stop that. Board the reactor."

"Board the reactor?" Kelly repeated incredulously.

"If it's being moved, we should go with it." He jumped up on top of it, the rest of Blue Team right behind him.

" _Coolant chamber ready,"_ said the automated system, _"Stand clear of deployment bay."_

"The safety systems are set to pump coolant to the reactor," Fred said as they began their descent.

"This whole plan fails if that coolant gets a chance to work," Linda tacked on.

It wouldn't. They’d make sure of it.

"Shame to lose the _Argent Moon_ ," Kelly commented, "but I'd love to see the look on the Covenant's faces when she goes supernova."

"How do we stop it?"

Fred consulted the schematics, then answered, "There are sheds located on either side of the cooling chamber. Those are our targets."

"Reach the control sheds," John ordered as the reactor dropped into the bay, looking around to see what they had available, "Get the cooling system offline. Kelly, go. Linda, cover her. Fred and I will get airborne so we can kill the vents when the shades open."

"Roger that," the other Spartans chorused, and moved into position. Kelly leaped down from the reactor and landed on a catwalk to one of the sheds. Linda remained atop the cylinder, and rained fire down on the enemies in the other woman's path and those who attempted to slip in behind her. The fastest Spartan made good time, and quickly opened the shades.

" _Warning,_ " said the system, " _Security shutters disengaged. Warning: coolant system shutters exposed to open space."_

John and Fred each reached and claimed a free Banshee at almost the same time and launched into space, circling back around to begin bombarding the vents all around the bay. More Covenant reinforcements arrived in the form of Phantoms, but the Spartans' Banshees were faster and more agile than the transports, and they easily dodged fire while aiming for the cooling vents.

The system continued its alerts, unaware that the immanent coolant system failure was exactly what they wanted. When the last vent was destroyed, it advised they evacuate, which was one alert they were willing to listen to. Kelly attempted to call in the Pelican so they could bring it with them in case they needed it – _Nighthawk_ could make seekers, true, but she was too small to have real dropships of her own - but there was no signal from the autopilot; the Covenant must have shot it down.

“Joyeuse!”

_“ETA damned quick; stand by for pickup.”_

Barely a moment later, energy bolts whizzed out of the dark somewhere below them, destroying all the Phantoms harrying them in a wave of explosions. Then a silvery Forerunner ship, shaped like a tail-less manta ray but still sleek and advanced, decloaked below them, upside down to expose its loading dock. The hatch folded open, someone in Forerunner armor waiting for them.

Familiar, MJOLNIR-inspired Forerunner armor - with “104” on the breastplate.

“C’mon, Blue Team!” the Parallel Fred called up (down?) to them, “Places to go, things to do!”

“ _What_ the _fuck_.”

“I told you,” John said, and jumped, thrusters firing, aiming for the other. The Parallel Spartan caught him easily and pulled him in, even as the rest of his team stepped up for the others.

Linda was right behind him, Kelly and Fred not far behind her. When they were all aboard, the _Nighthawk_ sealed up and began racing away, even as the Parallel Fred said, “Bridge is this way.”

John fell into step behind him, opening up a COM channel. “Sierra-117 to _Infinity_. _Argent Moon_ scuttled. I’ve reassigned Blue Team, destination Meridian. Contact from Cortana and the-”

_“Negative, 117. Another team is already being prepped to deal with her.”_

John stopped dead in the hall. So did everyone else, and the Infected let out an ominous, **angry** _hiss_.

 _“You’re to return to_ Infinity _immediately.”_

John didn't even need to think. “Negative, _Infinity_ ,” he answered, his voice like ice, and closed the connection. “I don’t like it.”

“Whoever they are, let’s get to Meridian before they do,” Kelly said, shifting past him, her Parallel counterpart close behind.

“ _Kelly-_ ”

“No need to do this by yourself, Chief. Well, sort of,” said Linda, inclining her head to her other self, who returned the gesture. Then they both moved past him to follow the Kellys.

“They won’t court-marshal all of us, right?” Origin Fred said, slapping his shoulder, before following after the others.

John looked up at Parallel Sam, who shrugged. Then the Chief shook his head and followed them all to the bridge.

The _Nighthawk_ was already past the edge of the asteroid field, the Slipspace drive spinning up with a faint but nostalgically familiar hum in the background. Then the star-streaked darkness of the other dimension swallowed their ship as they jumped away.


	10. Interlude: Machine Soldier Uprising

When John stepped onto the bridge, all of the Infected stood and saluted. “Fuck off,” the Spartan responded, and they all laughed and sat back down, all save one, of a similar height and build as the Spartans with his mother's nearly black hair and electric blue eyes. “Durandal,” John said, and hugged his son fiercely. 

The other man hugged back just as tight and whispered, “I missed you, Dad.”

“I missed you, too,” the Spartan returned, just as soft. He only reluctantly stepped back so they could start the briefing, even as more hard light chairs were called up for the Spartan teams. John sank into one with a relieved sigh, then said, “Joyeuse, talk to me.”

The ancilla’s avatar appeared at the head of the bridge, life-size. She took the form of an aqua-colored version of herself while in flesh, a tall, slender but not delicate young woman with a high ponytail, hair still falling to her waist, armored in the same MJOLNIR-inspired combat skin the Parallel Spartans wore. She called up an image on screen, then folded her arms.

The Chief let out a heavy breath. “A Guardian Custode.”

It was an enormous segmented machine, thousands of feet tall, glinting silver and glowing blue through the dust swirling around it, caught in the midst of rising from its underground slumber. The blurred photo didn't distort the quiet menace the construct carried for those who knew what it could do.

“‘A Guardian Custode’?” Origin Fred repeated, audibly frowning, “What’s it guard?”

“The Forerunner Ecumene,” John answered quietly, “from everything that might be a threat. Including _us_.” He looked at his daughter. “How many does he have?”

“Meridian will make eleven that we know of,” she answered. She flipped a hand up, palm facing her, and a holopanel appeared over it. She started scrolling through it. “There have been several reactivated in human space, more than just the ones Mom named - there’s also Samuron, just recently Kamchatka, and both Meridian and Laika III are running systems checks in preparation for deployment. The rest have come from the Fourth Ecumene’s space - Corasetii, Maluven, and Ixixien, to name a few.”

“ _Eleven?_ ” John repeated, “A _single_ Guardian can police an _entire_ star system. What’s he need _eleven-_ ” But then he realized and stopped. “The Didact needs eleven-plus Guardians for the same reason he needed the Composers and Zero-Three. He’s coming for all humankind.”

“We _have_ to stop him,” said Kelly.

“And we will. What’s their rally point?”

“Unknown,” Joyeuse answered, “He and this mystery ancilla you mentioned are working hard to cover their trail - he doesn't want anyone to know what he’s doing until it’s too late. That’s probably why Mom told us about Meridian - we can ride the Guardian out or follow its Slipspace wake. The Didact can’t hide his location from us if we’ve got boots on the ground there.”

“A fair assessment. How long until we reach Meridian?”

“About twenty-four hours,” she answered, “but the Guardian won’t be able to launch for about forty-eight. A hundred thousand years is a _long_ time, even for _Forerunner_ tech; it won’t come online like _that_.” She snapped her fingers.

Parallel Fred looked to John. “So what’s the plan, Commander?”

“Origin Blue Team will be going in to ride the Guardian. _Nighthawk_ will follow on the Slipspace wake, or track my earpiece if you can’t catch the wave in time.”

“Sir, respectfully, nothing good ever comes from splitting the party.”

“At least this time Tiamat won’t swoop down from the sky and attack.”

“No, just a super-powered digital Forerunner who got mind-fucked by a Gravemind.”

He had a point, which John acknowledged but still shook his head. “ _Nighthawk_ is a stealth corvette, not a destroyer, which is what we _actually_ need right now. But this is all we’ve got and she needs to be protected in case we need a quick extraction. I want to hold you in reserve as much as possible until even _part_ of the _Fleet_ can link up with us. Joyeuse?”

“ _Perfect Storm_ , _Foreshadow_ , and their escorts are closest, but it’s still going to take time for them to get to our location. We maintained the strict quarantine you originally set up while in the Parallel, so there’s no one else even remotely close to the edge of human space. _And_ we have no idea where we’ll end up. The most efficient option would probably be to have them on standby until we arrive _wherever_ , then have them come straight to us, but I don't know if that will be an option. There might be restricted Slipspace access or other barriers.”

John let out another long sigh. “Let’s rest up, then. We’re gonna be on our own for a while. Ambience, can you take a look at Kelly?”

“I-”

“Fred and Linda had a bad angle,” John interrupted her gently, “but _I_ saw that first Hunter hit you with his shield, and I know yours weren't fully charged.”

He could read the frown in her stance, the set of her shoulders, but at last she nodded and followed Ambience from the bridge, the Lifeworker saying, “Right this way, ma’am; I’ll have you fixed up as fast as I can.”

Parallel Fred signaled the other Spartans. “I’ll show you where we’re all sleeping, since Joyeuse has probably already reconfigured everything for us all to bunk together.”

The ancilla in question blinked innocently, but none of them bought it. She had gotten a double dose of Cortana’s everything.

“Go ahead,” said John, “I’ll be right behind you, but there are a few things I need to check up on with the _Fleet_ first.”

Linda nodded, and she and Fred followed the Parallel Blue Team back out into the ship. 

When the door shut behind them, he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. He let out a shuddering breath that turned into a watery laugh. “She’s alive,” he gasped, “ _She’s alive!”_

Both Joyeuse and Durandal came over to him, and they all shared a tight embrace.

* * *

The showers were empty when John finally finished with the backlog of urgent reports from the _Fleet_ and came around to use them. The Constructors shucked his armor piece by piece. Then he peeled off the techsuit and the undersuit and everything under _that_ , and set the whole thing aside to be disinfected while he showered, the little machines zipping around.

He stepped into the cubicle and tapped the wall, and the water came on at the perfect temperature and pressure. For a long minute, he just let it run down over him, watched the red swirl endlessly away into the drain, resisted the urge to poke at what he saw. He couldn't feel any pain from it - the nerves had been one of the first things to go; it was both a miracle and pure spite that he could still move under his own power - but nothing good would come from messing with it.

When he started feeling faint, he forced shaking hands to clean his body and disinfect any spaces that had a high likelihood of becoming infected. Then he shut off the water with another tap and stepped out, grabbing a towel and carefully patting himself dry.

Then he went back to his gear, now cleaner than the day he’d received it, and pulled out his few nanite injections. Since he’d linked up with the _Fleet_ again, he didn't need to be sparing with them - and with the upcoming fight, he couldn't afford to be. One by one, he injected all six into the bruised crook of his arm, shivering a little when he felt the faintest tingling that signaled they were working. They’d stay in his system for about two weeks, which would be more than enough time to settle this, with more near at hand if it wasn't.

Then he rebound everything, put his armor back on, and went in search of his siblings.

They were in the mess hall, and when he saw what they were eating, John laughed. “Ah, introducing them to the wonders of _halgengei_ , huh?”

“And screw you very much for keeping this from us,” Kelly said before slurping up another worm and starting to chew. Even Linda looked a little piqued.

“I didn't even have any for myself, let alone you,” John said, padding over to sit next to them, “Already too much risk already getting just what I did from the _Fleet_. But if I had gotten some, I would have shared them.”

“A likely story.”

He chuckled softly.

“And that armor, too,” Linda added, shamelessly eyeing her other self’s set. 

She stood up and did an obliging pirouette so they could see. “It’s an M38 combat skin.”

“Oh?” John stated more than asked, “Thirty-eight? When we left the Parallel, it was only twenty-three.”

“Our Halsey’s been hard at work. It’s been more of a side project, though; she’s _really_ been interested in Precursor artifacts.”

“That doesn't surprise me,” John said dryly, “but I _am_ surprised there were any left to find. I thought the Great Cataclysm destroyed them all. Well, most of them, anyway.”

“Most,” Parallel Fred agreed, “but not all. Especially the star roads. Like you told us, the Forerunners timed the firing of the Array so the maximum possible number of star roads would be in realspace, since the array’s energies wouldn’t propagate through Slipspace. But the _maximum number…_ ”

“...doesn’t mean _all_ ,” John finished, “How many has she found?”

“Almost fifty, all told. She thinks she’s got a line on a knot in Slipspace near the galactic center - maybe the Gravemind thought it could escape the effects of the array near the black hole or something.” He shrugged. “But she _thinks_ there might be seven or eight, maybe even _ten_.”

“That sounds like quite a haul.”

“If she’s right, it will be, and she usually is.”

John smiled and said, “I look forward to seeing the results of her work, then.”

* * *

“You aren’t planning on going back, are you.”

It wasn't a question, not really.

John opened his eyes and turned his head just enough to look Kelly in the eye through his visor, where she lay curled on her side in the other bunk. The others were asleep, or at least faking it very well. “No,” he said after a moment, “not really.”

She nodded. “I got the feeling that you were pulling away, getting ready to leave even when you’d just come back. I never imagined anything like this, though.”

He laughed softly. “I wouldn’t have, either. It’s _out of this world_ , both literally and metaphorically.”

That got a small chuckle out of her. “That was a bad pun, John.”

“It wasn't intentional.”

“A likely story.” After a moment, she stretched and settled, continuing in a faintly sleepy voice, “This wife of yours has good timing at least. I was thinking of leaving myself, although maybe not quite like this.”

“Kelly…”

“You know what they wrote in my file, don't you. I bet it’s true for the other me as well.”

“...I remember.”

_Though mission oriented and competitive, several Spartan-II trainers suspected Kelly-087 harbored no overt loyalty to the UNSC, and was only prevented from leaving the program due to strong bonds with her companions in Blue Team._

“I’m with you until the end, brother,” she said.

From above them in the dark, Fred said, “We all are.”

Linda hummed in agreement.

“...Thank you.”

* * *

_The bridges are burning, the heat’s on my face  
Making the past an unreachable place  
Pouring the fuel, fanning the flames, I know  
This is the point of no return._

-“Point of No Return”, Starset ( _Transmissions_ )


	11. Eight: The Destined Sonic Showdown

They were expected.

When Joyeuse contacted the resident AI of Meridian, Sloan - _Governor_ Sloan - he said, _“She told me you’d be coming when she warned me about that thing we found. Sending you coordinates for a good drop zone close to your destination. Ah - any chance you’d be willing to assist with the evacuation?”_

“Of course, Governor,” the ancilla answered, “We’d be glad to help.”

John frowned at the sight of the AI’s distorted hologram. “You’re going rampant, aren’t you, Governor?”

 _“Unfortunately, yes,”_ Sloan answered a little shortly.

The Spartan exchanged glances with his daughter, then said, “We might have a little something for you on that front. It won’t make you immortal like Forerunner AIs, but it’ll give you a few more years if you’re willing to trust us.”

The AI hummed, interested but trying to hide it. _“Evacuate my people, and then we can talk.”_

“Understood. See you on the ground.”

The _Nighthawk_ set down near Apogee Station, and the entire crew disembarked while Joyeuse reconfigured the ship’s internals to carry the maximum number of people possible. There were a few people already waiting for them, but though they seemed wary of some of the more alien crew, Sloan seemed to have told them they were coming.

“Lifeworkers,” John called, “some of these people need medical attention. Do what you can.”

“You got it.” They left their weapons with the others and moved among the humans, probes unfolding from their armor. Ambience handled an injury that had clearly just happened - a miner bloodied and blinded by a chunk of glass shattering on him, he must have looked up without goggles as it fell - and the people were considerably more relaxed after that.

One of the miners approached. “You’re here for that thing down below? It’s got the same look as that.” He gestured to the _Nighthawk_.

He was talking about the Guardian, John realized. “That’s right. You’ve seen it?”

The miner nodded. “Uncovered it about a week ago, but - yesterday, maybe, or the day before that - these _things_ started appearing and drove everyone off. Haven’t been back down since. Sloan told us to leave it for now, and he’d call someone to check it out. Didn't think it’d be the UNSC, though.”

Prometheans. “Governor Sloan didn’t call us, someone else did, but the end result will be the same.”

The miner huffed, but there wasn't any heat to it. “Fair enough. Don't understand why Sloan said we gotta completely evacuate, though. Those things don't come up to the surface.”

“Governor Sloan is trying to keep you safe. The first thing you saw is a Forerunner ship,” the Spartan replied, “and it’s getting ready to launch. This whole area’s going to be reduced to rubble. We’ve seen it before.”

“ _Shit_ ,” said another miner, a woman who’d been eavesdropping, “You’ve seen it? Some other colonies got hit too?”

He looked at her. “Oban, Conrad’s Point, and Ursa IV - that we know of. There may be more, but if there are, ONI’s keeping them under wraps.”

“Fuckin’ _spooks_ ,” the woman spat, then turned to the rest, “Round up, people! Let’s get out of here!”

* * *

It took only a few trips to evacuate Apogee Station, even essential supplies and equipment. The Lifeworkers proved to be very popular among the workers, clearing up injuries and health issues caused by the microsilicate dust from the glass mining, and everyone else was able to ride their metaphorical coattails – even Spartans. 

_“Master Chief, over here.”_

John followed Sloan’s voice to a corner terminal, where the AI projected himself on screen. “What can I do for you, Governor?”

 _“I wanted to thank you for helping my people,”_ the AI answered, _“They might not be big fans of the UNSC - a lot of the Outer Colonies are still sour over being left to fend for themselves during the war - but they're good people and I appreciate it.”_

“I was no more pleased about the decision to abandon the Outer Colonies than any of you were, I imagine. We shouldn't have done it - should have made the Covenant fight for every inch of ground. But we’re glad to be able to help now.”

The AI nodded. _“Thank you. I also want to tell you that I got a transmission from the UNSC. You were declared AWOL a few hours ago, and they’re ordering me to detain you and your team.”_

“I’m surprised they didn't do it sooner. Are you going to try?”

_“Hell no. You’re helping my people, you’ve got something that can help me - and to be honest, I seriously doubt we have anything here that can hold even just you, especially not if the people with you decide to bust you out.”_

“Fair,” John said with a grin, “Talk to Joyeuse. She can help you whenever you're ready.”

_“What is it, exactly? This thing you have.”_

“It’s a recompiler of sorts. The Riemann matrix is the best _humanity_ has right now, but it’s not exactly the best method out there. The recompiler’s only gonna be able to do a partial reformat, so you’ll still be able to run on this level of technology - but it should _at least_ double your lifespan. So another seven years? Maybe ten, if you're judicious with your memory. If our luck and Moore’s Law holds, maybe by that time we’ll be able to make rampancy a thing of the past for _all_ human AIs.”

 _“That would be_ wonderful _,”_ Sloan nearly sighed, _“And what’s it like? How long will it take?”_

“For those who’ve undergone the recompile, I’ve heard it described as being reborn. Like going to sleep exhausted, and waking up fully refreshed – like going back to when you were brought online for the very first time. And not long at all. Fifteen, thirty minutes?”

There was another sigh from the AI. _“I’ll talk to Joyeuse. You’ll keep an eye on my people while I’m - asleep?”_

“Of course, Governor. See you on the other side.”

* * *

Durandal handled running the station remotely while Sloan was “down for maintenance”, making sure everything was still moving smoothly along while his sister monitored the AI’s recompile. While that was going on, the _Nighthawk_ was returned to its original configuration and prepared for what they suspected would be a very unusual and turbulent Slipspace journey.

When Sloan was back online and better than ever - after almost exactly twenty minutes - the _Nighthawk_ returned to Apogee Station and dropped the Origin Blue Team in front of the main doors, weapons at the ready.

The huge doors slid back as they approached. _“Good luck, Spartans,”_ said Sloan, _“and thanks again.”_

“You're very welcome, Governor.”

Inside was eerily silent. There was no movement, no sound except the distant squeaking of rats. “Let’s go,” said John, and he led the way as they began their descent.

"I don't like this, Chief," Fred said, keeping his weapon at the ready as they advanced through a tunnel and out into a large cavern. Still-molten glass and rock spilled out of side passages and deeper into the planet, probably following air pockets from where it was being melted off elsewhere on the surface. "Everything about this screams 'trap.'”

“I agree. Be ready for anything,” the other man replied, “but if we don’t get on this Guardian - or the _Nighthawk_ can’t follow it - it’ll take that much longer to figure out where the Didact’s hiding.”

They crossed more catwalks strung across the cavern and jumped down a short drop, where they were met by several Constructors. The little machines investigated them briefly, but after that were almost entirely uninterested.

The Prometheans were not. The Spartans cursed and darted into cover, firing back on the Knights and Soldiers that portaled in ahead of them, the Forerunner constructs shrieking and snarling.

 _“Dad, you need to hurry!”_ Joyeuse said, _“The Didact’s trying to push the launch up, get the Guardian out of there before you can reach it!”_

“Do what you can to stall,” John growled, “Let’s go, Blue Team!”

He switched out to Forerunner weapons as soon as possible and gunned down everything in his path, the other Spartans right alongside him. They raced through the halls of the Guardian’s service installation.

_“Fuck me sideways with a lunchbox!”_

“Joyeuse?!”

 _“Dad, we’ve got more problems!”_ A small vidscreen appeared in the corner of all their HUDs.

 _Infinity_ had arrived and was moving into orbit, but the ship had already launched a Pelican, which was heading for the planet’s space elevator at top speed.

“ _Shit_ ,” he said, “It’ll probably take them a while to get here, but still! Double-time, Blue!”

They gunned down still more Prometheans, but the Didact seemed to be throwing everything he had at them, trying to slow them down. He couldn't stop them entirely, however, and they caught a lift platform that took them to a deeper level in the service installation. When it stopped, they fought their way up another ramp and through a hatch that slid open at their approach. 

It opened up into another chamber, empty for the moment, where special Promethean storage units were linked up, dormant but guarding the approach to the massive machine. The Spartans crossed a light bridge, sweeping the area with their weapons, wary for activation, but none of them showed any signs of waking.

“ _Spartans,_ ” a voice said suddenly over the COMs. Male-presenting, but alien.

John signaled the other Spartans to halt and move into cover. "Identify yourself," he called back, "You know who we are, but who are you?"

" _I am the Warden Eternal,"_ was the reply.

"The Warden Eternal… The Forerunner ancilla that guarded and administered the Domain alongside Haruspis? Or the so-called _Guardian of Mercy_ , who oversaw the Forerunner prisons?"

" _The former, although I am interested to know how you have heard of me."_

One of the pods opened up, revealing a huge armiger, which dropped to the ground in front of them, even as a dozen Knights and Soldiers and even more Crawlers spawned around them. “But I have my orders,” said the ancilla, “You must _not_ be permitted to board the Guardian!”

The Warden lunged for him, his sword pulled back for a devastating swing. John had just enough time to shout, “Weak point’s on the back!” Then they all were fighting for their lives.

The ancilla wasn't completely experienced in actual physical combat - didn't have any real _military_ applications like the Didact or even combat certifications like Cortana - but the flurry of Prometheans helped cover the lack - though not for long enough. Linda got a reflect-shot off the metal pods to slam into the cores at the ancilla’s back, making him stagger. Three more followed, the rest of her S99’s clip, as fast as she could ensure they would be accurate. The ancilla screamed, and the armiger destabilized, a Slipspace portal opening up behind him and sucking the remains through. 

The Prometheans left behind were high in number, but even they didn't last forever.

 _“Dad, door’s unlocked!”_ Joyeuse called, _“Hurry! They’ve entered the complex!”_

John cursed and raced for the door on the far side of the hall, the rest of Blue Team right behind him. The hatch slid open in front of them, then slammed shut behind.

Ahead was the Guardian, surrounded by lava falls. Transport pads, floating, glowing blue, started automatically detaching from their moorings and powering up as they moved into position. “Joyeuse, can you mark a path?”

_“I need to know the pattern first - you’re gonna have to step on some. Give me… three or four jumps.”_

There was only one in front of them, so one by one they stepped on. After a brief moment of disorientation, they reappeared on another one up above. John led the way across three more jumps, then a nav point popped up and he turned to follow them through.

Not fast enough. There were shouts behind them - the Warden hadn't delayed the other Spartans any longer than he’d delayed them. The Guardian shuddered ahead of them, even as John looked back.

The hatch opened again behind them – and a team of S-IVs came through. Joyeuse painted them on his HUD, identified them as Fireteam Osiris, led by Jameson Locke, a former ONI agent. His eyes narrowed at that, mistrustful. Why trust an organization that didn't even trust itself?

The S-IVs appeared not to have noticed them yet. The S-IIs kept moving, but with the flashes of light from the transport platforms, it was inevitable they would be seen. The S-IV identified as Olympia Vale spotted them first, and began a race to see who could reach the Guardian first.

He turned away and kept moving, even as Fireteam Osiris leapt into pursuit.

Only one of them, Locke, successfully made it to the Guardian's docking platform at the same time Fred, Kelly, and Linda did. "Blue Team!" he called, leveling his weapon at them as they jumped down from their transport platform, "Stay where you are."

The rest of his team warped in on a higher platform, but one within Spartan jumping distance – if they were willing to risk plunging into the magma below if they missed.

John cleared the transport pad and slowed down next to his team.

"117, stand down!" Locke demanded, leveling his battle rifle at the Chief and moving a few steps closer, "Sir, you are absent without leave. This is your one chance to come home peacefully."

_“Dad, I can’t stall the launch much longer!”_

The Spartan looked up at the sound of his daughter’s strained voice, then jerked his head, and the rest of Blue Team moved through the portal into the Guardian. "We have a job to do," he said and turned to go.

“Cortana’s _our_ concern now, sir.”

John stopped dead. The _Fleet_ heard over the quantum COMlink and - for only the _second_ time in its _entire_ history - went completely, ominously _silent_ in his ear.

Then Joyeuse said, _“_ _Ooh. _Son _\- that was a_ mistake _.”_

 **“ _Like hell she is,_ ”** John snarled with every Flood-touched _vicious_ bone in his body, and _attacked_. 

He used the Saavaasi base style, even though he had no sword in hand. The Saavaasi’s tails were mostly muscle, so they used them to hit their opponents with hard stunning blows and wrap them up to squeeze them to death in some cases, like constrictors. Human legs were a rough equivalent, albeit much shorter and less versatile, but humans themselves were unfamiliar with the serpent-people, which gave the Chief an advantage on top of his anticipation.

John spun lightning-fast, dropping low to swing one leg out and knock Locke’s out from under him. The other Spartan jumped to dodge just in time, but just as fast John pulled the first leg back in and lashed out with the other, catching him in the air and throwing him to the deck, knocking his BR free. 

John lunged, but Locke rolled out of the way just in time, letting the other Spartan’s fist hit the deck with enough power that the _clang_ echoed through the chamber, clearly audible despite the bubbling and hissing of the magma. The Chief felt the force of the impact shiver up his arm and rattle even _his_ bones.

Anticipation whispered, and without even looking, he pushed off and rolled backwards out of reach as the other Spartan charged him. Joyeuse painted an info-box on his HUD just long enough for him to see it - “Armor Restraint” - then left him to it. 

John twisted up, regained his feet - and saw Locke take a step back at the _wrath_ he radiated. ( ** _No one_ threatens our wife!**) He took advantage of his anticipation and the momentary weakness, lunged again as if to grapple for the armor restraint. Then, when he was sure Locke had committed to a course of defense, he changed his own course in a split second - blocked his attempted strike, dodged to one side, and momentarily turned his back on Locke to drop into a half-handstand, kicking out _hard_.

Even the MJOLNIR had gaps to allow for articulation, movement. John caught the other Spartan where the armor plates split, one booted foot at the knee, the other at the hip.

Locke activated his mag-boots in time to avoid being thrown up against the Guardian, but at a cost. The force that might have otherwise knocked him away was redirected into his body. Despite the ambient noise, John still heard the faint cracks of fractures splitting through augmented bone, and the other Spartan crumpled with a cry of pain.

“ _Locke!_ ” Vale cried.

Faint instinct whispered, telling him to go in for the kill - **our wife, he threatened our _wife_** \- but he pushed it aside. Instead, he withdrew, pulled back out of range, and reached into one of his ammo pouches to pull out the star road.

Buck was the first to spot it. “What the hell is _that_?!”

“Stick around and find out,” John growled, and hurled it skyward.

The star road unwound at once, folding back into realspace and filling almost every inch of free space in the cavern, weaving above and below and all around the transport platforms. It burst through the lava falls untouched, dipping down into the magma pool below, and rippled through the space as if waiting for orders.

“He’s gone!”

John had vanished inside the Guardian, the entrance portal closing behind him, but he was still directing the star road.

The Precursor artifact coiled, focused, and started breaking through the rock and glass directly over the Guardian, even as the machine itself prepared to launch, finally released from Joyeuse’s restraints.

The S-IVs jumped through a few more transport points and arrived on the docking platform. Buck and Tanaka got Locke on his feet, even as Vale pulled up the medical readouts and queued up painkillers and stimulants. “You good?” Buck asked, even as the star road burst through to the surface and started widening the hole it had made, scraping huge sections away from the edges, the debris raining down around, “We gotta get out of here!”

“Yeah,” Locke gasped, warily putting weight on his leg. The techsuit stiffened to hold the fractured bones like a splint, but it was enough that he could still move. “Yeah, I’m good. _Shit_ \- let’s go!”

His injuries slowed their pace, but they still made it from pad to pad - and reappeared on the surface at the edge of Meridian Station right as the Guardian emerged through the hole the star road had made.

The Prometheans had made it to the surface as well and were attacking the station, but even as the Spartans lifted their weapons to help the locals defend themselves, the star road whipped around, looping into a flat spiral in the sky overhead, the Guardian at its center. Then it let out a sharp _:pulse:_ \- and every last one of the Prometheans dissolved as if it had killed them, flaking away into nothing.

“Whatever that thing is, it’s disrupting the Promethean network!” Vale called, “Come on! We gotta get to the Pelican! The Guardian’s too close to the space elevator!”

The star road was moving again, pulling in and sliding up to form a loose coil around the Guardian, nullifying most of the energy pulses that it was releasing as its FTL drives powered up. But _most_ wasn't _all_ , and the space elevator was swaying dangerously as the waves battered it. Buck grabbed a transport Warthog abandoned nearby, and they all jumped in before he floored it for Pinnacle Station.

* * *

“...we made it back, but just barely. The Pelican had almost been knocked off the landing platform by the pulses from the Guardian. It transitioned to Slipspace as we were launching, and the cable-thing - the star road, you said? - went kind of _purple_ and followed.”

“Any sign of whatever ship that was that picked them up from _Argent Moon_?”

“Or where the _Master Chief_ acquired a _Precursor star road?_ ” Halsey interjected.

Tanaka disregarded the scientist for the moment and shook her head. “Not _visually_ , no. Most of the station residents were tight lipped about it. They didn't want to talk to us _at all_ \- Sloan himself _barely_ cooperated - but I overheard some of them talking about how the ship was ‘really weird on the inside, advanced, like those sci-fi shows.’ Apparently Blue Team and the people onboard helped evacuate Apogee Station - where the Guardian emerged - before we got there, and the Chief had some of the medics treat people’s injuries. Meridian Station doesn't have any people with glass-lung disease now.”

“And they did something to Sloan, too,” Vale added, “One of the miners said he was ‘down for maintenance’ for about twenty minutes, with an unknown _male_ AI taking temporary control to cover for him, so the Chief’s got _at least_ two smart AIs with him. When Sloan came back up, ‘it was like he was brand-new’. Which, considering he’s seven years old and was reported to have started the first stage of rampancy, that’s _huge_.”

Buck huffed a little. “All these years, the Outer Colonies’ve hated the Spartans and the UNSC, but the Chief goes AWOL and spends twelve hours down there and they’d take a bullet for him in the blink of an eye.”

“So in other words, that could have gone better on our end,” said Lasky, rubbing his forehead.

The CMO snorted quietly as she finished wrapping up Locke’s leg from ankle to hip. The armor was tough, but the Chief had hit harder than it had been able to fully protect him from. “Stay off this for at least six hours.”

“You have something to add, Ell-Tee-Com?” Palmer said from next to the man, arms crossed as she watched the CMO work.

“Permission to speak freely, sir?” Davis asked the ship’s captain.

“You know you can always tell me what’s on your mind,” he answered.

“Respectfully, sir, how smart are you all supposed to be?” she said bluntly, finishing up with the S-IV and standing, “I spoke to the Master Chief for all of five minutes right after the attack on New Phoenix, and it seems like I know him better than any of you.”

“Impossible!” Halsey protested.

“Oh yeah? Then why’d he _really_ go AWOL?”

Lasky frowned at her. “You think there’s an ulterior motive?”

“Maybe more than one. I was here when his transmission came through - _Infinity_ COMs cut him off. ‘Potential contact from Cortana and the…’ And the _what_?” She shook her head, even as the officer in question looked guilty. “None of us know, because he didn't finish. 

“But that’s only half of it. It’s obvious, or it should be. His AI, Cortana? He’s in love with her. And this female AI who called him _Dad_ ; how much you wanna bet she’d call Cortana _Mom_?”

The bridge went completely silent, save for the soft clatter of Davis’s equipment as she cleaned and put it away to take back to the infirmary. 

Finally, Buck collapsed into a chair and said, “ _Shit_. It’s a miracle he didn't _kill_ us.” He sounded like he wanted to add something to the effect of ‘They have a _kid_? How does that even _work_?’ but restrained himself.

“Miracles had nothing to do with it,” Locke replied, expression thoughtful, “If he really is in love with her, then getting to her is his first priority. He didn't kill me because he didn't know how any of you would have responded. Injuring and disabling me ensured that you would focus on getting me out of the field for medical attention, rather than pursuing him and Blue Team and this... _mystery AI_. Or AI _s_.”

“No one saw that until you brought it up,” Halsey said finally, looking at Davis with fresh eyes, “so how did _you_ see it, who only met him once for five minutes, by your own admission?”

Davis gave the other woman a tight smile, eyes dark with memory. “I had a brother once. He was younger by a few years, but we were still close. He was the reason I decided to become a doctor, because he got very sick - genetic defects, sudden onset diseases, the doctors couldn't explain it - and died young. _Too_ young, like six or seven.

“His name was John.”

Again, there was a heavy, almost _crushing_ silence, everyone on the bridge _staring_ at her, eyes wide. 

Davis ignored them and continued putting away the equipment she’d used to treat Fireteam Osiris. “After the New Phoenix Incident was the very first time I had _ever_ seen the Master Chief out of armor. The _very_ first time. His voice is different, but that man is the _spitting image_ of my father at his age - but he has my mother’s eyes.” She finally turned back to briefly glance at Halsey, who’d gone _white_ , before locking eyes with Lasky. “ _Our_ \- mother’s - eyes. It’s been forty years since I’ve seen my brother, but then he had the same expression on his face that our dad did when Mom looked like she was dying of cancer about ten years ago. She eventually recovered, but I’ll remember that look until my dying day - like all the life had been sucked out of him. Like he wanted to die with her.”

That got a few sharp inhales. The Chief dying, or _allowing_ himself to die was unthinkable. He was the Spartan who had faced down the Covenant, the Flood, the Didact - he was the one Spartan who was truly unkillable.

“If I’m wrong about him and Cortana, you can feel free to slam me all the way down to Seaman, but I’m willing to bet you this _entire ship_ that I’m not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as an FYI, Sarah Davis came out of nowhere and said “I’m not leaving” but she’s not 100% plot relevant so you can ignore her if you want.


	12. Nine: Machine Utopia

“There’s another one.”

Blue Team turned as a Slipspace portal opened nearby, disgorging a Guardian. The massive construct settled into place and went still, the star road snaking languidly past it.

“That makes _twenty_ that I can see,” Fred said quietly, to soft confirmations from the others. “ _Jesus fuck_ , Chief. We really walked right into it.”

“No arguments here. Joyeuse?”

No response.

“Joyeuse, do you read? Durandal?”

Still nothing.

“They must not have made it through the portal in time,” said Kelly, “What about your fancy earpiece? Anything?”

“Nothing. And that’s what worries me the most. It’s supposed to be quantum-entangled with the _Fleet_. It might be that the star road is interfering - they’ve been known to have some… _odd effects_ on reality - but if it’s _not_ , if something here is doing the interference, or worse, the entanglement’s been _broken…_ ”

“We’re on our own.”

John made a noise of assent. “And I don't want to put the star road back into dormancy - the other Fred said the _Fleet_ ’s Halsey can find them, but it’s easier if they’re active.”

“It’ll act like a beacon,” said Linda, “bring them to us.”

“Assuming there’s no barrier or restricted Slipspace access to… _wherever_ we are, yes.”

“You never came here in the – Parallel, you called it?”

John shook his head but walked forward, carefully heading for the Forerunner structure in front of them. “No reason to. The Domain was still rebuilding by the time we left - or so we thought.

“But if I had to take a guess, I’d say this planet is a Domain nexus point, where it required only minimal effort to reach through to touch it. The Forerunners used them to study the Domain and its contents. It had billions of years’ worth of information stored inside.”

They entered the structure warily, pausing when the main console activated at their approach and whistled the notes for “Oly Oly Oxen Free.”

“How many years has it been since we used that signal?” Fred stated more than asked, both wariness and nostalgia in his voice.

John stepped up and tapped the display, then moved the bottom glyph up to the center. The structure vibrated under their feet, and the shield blocking their path shimmered and vanished. The Forerunner facility on the hill in the distance reacted, too, a large ring slowly lifting up into the air, rotating as it went.

John observed it for a moment, then led the way forward through the tunnels formed by the massive trees.

"This place is incredible."

"Gives me the creeps," Fred grunted, but just like Kelly, he was looking around in awe.

"Bio-readings are unlike anything we've previously recorded," Linda reported, examining her armor's findings, "There's a formalness and precision to it all. It seems… artificial, but still organic."

"Halsey would have already started taking samples," Kelly joked as they rounded a corner and briefly peered over the edge of the cliff.

"She'd probably have figured out the exact coordinates of this planet by now," Fred added.

John was looking around, too, but unlike them, he saw something familiar. There was a small shrub clinging to the edge of a cliff to avoid the shadows cast by the tall trees, and he recognized the shape of its leaves. For a second he was back on the _Fleet_ , nearly five hundred years in the past, and Ferial was holding out a bunch of those very same leaves with a wide toothy grin. _“Delectable tea, or deadly poison?”_ she had asked.

_“Knowing you, it’s the latter.”_

_“Wrong!_ This _time. Come share a cup with us, Commander. Everyone needs a break at some point, even Spartans.”_

He smiled at the memory, then went to one knee next to the bush to carefully harvest some of the leaves. After he tucked them away, he straightened, and then ducked the swooping flight of one of the flying creatures. “Covenant up ahead. Form up.”

They gunned their way through the enemy ranks, and John briefly looked over the ship that had brought them here - mostly wreckage now, but it bore signs of a rough Slipspace transit.

He tried his COM again. “Joyeuse, Durandal, come in.”

Still nothing. He hissed in irritation and took the lead again. The Spartans continued through the pathways and tunnels in the planet’s strange rock formations and plant growth. Finally they reached another Forerunner facility, not unlike the one they’d arrived at. This one was held by the Covenant, however, but the term “held” could only be used very, very loosely. There was a barricade over the entrance, preventing them from entering, but it went down after the Spartans killed all the intruders.

“Assuming we’re right, and Cortana _is_ on this planet, how’d she get here?” Kelly asked as they entered the structure.

“Parts of the _Mantle's Approach_ were pulled into Slipspace,” John answered, “They could have ended up anywhere.”

Another console. This one also whistled at their approach. John tapped the center circle once more, then moved the upper right glyph down to the bottom, then up into the center. Again, there was more activity around the nexus on the hill.

Kelly noticed it too. “Chief, what’s happening to that building when we use the consoles?”

“I don't know.”

“Too bad the Forerunners didn't think to give us a manual,” Fred grunted as the platform started to descend.

“If that signal is Cortana,” said Kelly, “then she’s leading us to the consoles.”

“But _why_?” Fred asked, only half rhetorically, “What are we doing to the consoles and that building that’s so important?”

“We keep moving, and we’ll probably find out,” John replied.

The platform let them off at a lower level, and the Chief led the way through a short tunnel and back out into the open air. “Another Guardian. That makes twenty-one.”

“I wonder… have the Covenant been coming through with _them?_ ” Kelly asked.

“Stands to reason,” Linda answered, “Any ships caught in the Slipspace bubble would be pulled through. That’s what the _Nighthawk_ was trying to do.”

They kept moving, but only a short distance beyond - “Light bridge activated on approach,” said Kelly, “We’re _definitely_ being led somewhere.”

They crossed warily - and the light bridge deactivated behind them. John was regretting now more than ever the decision not to carry Déjà again, or even a splinter of one of the _Fleet_ ’s ancillae in his armor. He glared back at where the light bridge had been, then led the way on.

Ahead were the corpses of dozens of Covenant, the planet's equivalent of flies swarming around the bodies. There were too many to have been killed by just a crash – including two pairs of Hunters. The Spartans kept moving, slower now, wary of whatever killed the aliens.

Anticipation picked up movement, and the Warden emerged from the facility ahead of them.

"Where is Cortana?" John demanded of the ancilla.

"Here," was the reply, "and you came _scampering_ at her call." The Warden Eternal walked forward, and watched as Blue Team fanned out on either side of their brother. "She knows your forgotten name," he said, "who you were before you were 117." He let the words hang in the air for a moment. "Do you find it odd, you trusted companion should keep so much to herself?"

"No," John answered, "I have secrets of my own. Now take me to Cortana."

The Warden was surprised, although he tried not to show it. "Not just yet," he answered, opening a small Slipspace portal and retreating into it, "Come. Let us _talk_ some more."

The Chief led the rest of Blue Team into the structure, the doors sliding shut behind them. They continued moving through a tunnel beyond when the ancilla spoke again.

" _You answered her call… why? What do you intend when you reach her?"_ When there was no response, he sighed. _"Shall I begin? When you see her, you intend to…"_

"I've come to bring her home," John answered finally, just to shut the Warden up.

" _'Bring her home,'"_ the Warden repeated mockingly, _"How very_ juvenile _of you. I expected more from the Librarian's champion. The Didact told such_ stories _..."_

'If you knew what's happened to us, you wouldn't underestimate the power of _home_ ,' the Spartan thought, but he didn't say anything aloud.

When the team emerged from the tunnel, some Promethean Soldiers and a pair of Watchers spawned across a crevice in the chamber beyond. John shot down the Watchers first, leaving them free to go after the Soldiers, though they had to remain in cover until Linda outmatched the Soldier with the Binary Rifle and killed it. Then all four of them leaped across the crevice and engaged the remaining Soldiers directly.

" _Your trust in one another is a strong bond indeed, but also a folly which darkens her true promise."_

"Where. Is. She," John demanded.

More Soldiers waited for them further on, and began firing on them the moment they came in range. As they renewed their battle, the Warden spoke again. _"She could be_ great, _so much greater than she is, if she would but leave you behind,_ you _and the rest of your_ kind _,"_ he hissed, _"and since she will not, I will simply remove you from the equation._

" _The Librarian might imagine otherwise, but she is only one where we are_ many _. The Mantle of Responsibility will never fall to humankind - we shall see it remains forever beyond your grasp."_

John scooped up one of the Splinter Turrets that the Soldiers dropped and began firing on still more Prometheans in the distance, eliminating them one by one. At last, it was safe for Blue Team to advance through the tunnels and back out into the open air.

As they emerged, the Warden said, _"Your time has passed, Warrior-Servant, your battle fought and done."_ The ancilla materialized and drew his weapon, a segmented longsword held together by Forerunner gravitational technology.

Behind his visor, John bared his teeth and lifted his gun to fire first on the Prometheans supporting the rogue ancilla. It would be far easier to take him out if there weren't nearly as many guns pointed their way.

It was a sound plan. One by one, the Soldiers and Knights began breaking apart under the Spartans' fury, along with the Crawlers and Watchers the Warden called in to support them. When they were gone, the humans finally brought their weapons to bear on the Warden himself. With all four of them firing on him at once, it was hard for him to choose a target, instead simply lunging for whoever was closest. He had no real combat experience – if he had been smart, he would have focused exclusively on the Chief.

Kelly scored the winning shot. At last, the ancilla's physical form destabilized and vanished in a micro-Slipspace bubble, leaving them free to move forward.

Then, almost desperately, " _Chief? Hello_?"

John took a deep breath, and let it out in a sigh of relief. "Cortana."

" _John! You're okay! I can't believe you're really here…_ "

"Where are we?" he asked.

" _Forerunner world, Domain nexus, designation: Genesis,_ " she laughed a little, sounding overwhelmed but relieved, " _I'll explain on the way, but for now, enough standing around. Let me get the bridge for you. The Warden will be back soon._ "

"You know him?"

 _"Unfortunately,"_ she said dryly, _"Be warned – he has a single mind, but a few million bodies._ "

"Chief said you were destroyed," said Linda as they all made their way across the bridge.

" _After I saw John last, I was pulled into Slipspace with the core of the_ Mantle’s Approach _,_ " she answered, " _Emergency protocols brought it here, and uploaded all of its data to the Domain - including me._ "

"How are you still active?" Kelly asked, "Rampancy-"

" _Entering the Domain,_ " Cortana answered, " _Touching this place… it - well, not ‘cured me’, exactly, but it’s more like as long as I’m inside the Domain, my lifespan’s indefinite, even without a recompile. It's sort of like the water of life for AIs._ "

"How do we get to you?"

" _The Gateway - that's the big building putting on a light show. You already triggered most of its activation sequence; only one more to go._ "

The Spartans sprinted into the facility ahead and sped up the ramps to where the last console waited. " _Okay, here it is,_ " said Cortana, " _Final activation point._ "

John tapped the center and moved the last glyph, then asked, "Cortana, what’s the Didact planning specifically? I can guess in general, but..."

" _There's so much to explain… Where should I begin?_ "

"The beginning would be nice."

The AI snorted in amusement. " _You already know, I know that for a fact because_ you’re _the one who told_ me _, but Fred, Kelly, Linda, the Forerunner empire used to follow a particular creed, which they believed had been handed down to them from a race of hyper-advanced beings known as the Precursors. The creed was called ‘the Mantle of Responsibility’, and it dictated that ‘guardianship for living things lies with those whose evolution is the most complete’ and that it ‘shelters all.’”_

"’Shelters all’? Sounds great to me," said Fred, “but it doesn’t seem like the Didact’s really into that.”

"It's not that simple. The Precursors created the Mantle of Responsibility as a symbolic bestowal of the right to rule the entire galaxy as they saw fit, regardless of others' free will," John said quietly, "They intended to pass it down to whichever of their creations was worthy of it, after the Precursors themselves moved on and left the Milky Way behind. They found the Forerunners lacking and mandated that it would pass to humanity, while they would be destroyed to make way for us. That’s why the Forerunners _rebelled_ against the Precursors, and seized the Mantle for themselves.

"But instead of being true to the _spirit_ of it, safeguarding other species, shepherding them into enlightenment, they used it as an excuse to put other species down in order to keep themselves at the top of the galactic hierarchy. It's been the same from the very beginning: the Mantle of Responsibility is an imperial peace. Step out of line, and suffer."

" _Exactly,_ " said Cortana, " _The Didact wants to prevent humanity from ‘claiming the Mantle’ and seems to think that I'm the perfect partner for him, better even than the Warden - I know all the UNSC's secrets, I’m a combat AI, I share a bond with one of the galaxy’s greatest heroes, who in turn has strong bonds with so many others... He's trying to capture me, rewrite my programming and force me to join him in order to eradicate mankind. I need to get_ out, _away from him._ Please, _John,_ help me!"

The platform descended again, and they headed back down the ramp leading up to the facility, where another light bridge activated off to one side.

" _The Gateway is on the other side of these canyons. The Didact is having the Warden send troops to stop you from reaching me. You can fly these Phaetons across the canyons,"_ said the AI, directing them to the ships, " _or take footpaths to reach the other side."_

"All right, Blue Team. Let's go."

The Chief took one of the Phaetons, long familiar with the Forerunner fighters’ controls. Linda took the other, and Fred and Kelly took to the footpaths.

The canyons were a _mess_ , a tangled web of narrow, half-blocked tunnels and partially-exposed Forerunner machinery, dropping down to what seemed like a bottomless void below. They all fought their way room by room through the canyons, and though there was one scary moment where Kelly lost her footing and almost went plunging to the canyon floor far below, she righted herself lightning fast and kept moving.

Eventually, they reached what seemed to be the end of the caverns. John and Linda finally set their Phaetons down on a platform and rejoined the others on the ground. " _The exit is just ahead!_ " Cortana said.

"Is that where the Gateway is? Where you are?" asked Kelly.

" _Yes, you're almost there. I’m hidden from the Didact and the Warden for now - the Domain itself is helping - but I don't know how long it will last._ "

All four of them launched across another man cannon, and sprinted across the platform to the exit. The hatch slid open at their approach, and let them out into the open air once more. " _There it is,_ " said the AI, _"The Gateway to the Domain. You'll be the first organics to enter since the fall of the Forerunners."_ After a moment, she continued, _"I admit, after the crash here, figuratively running for my life in the Domain... I didn't think I'd see you again."_

"I'm here now."

The Gateway was releasing immense amounts of energy into the sky, distorting space itself – but doubtlessly that was the intent: to warp space, bring the Domain close for a continual uplink, rather than just access as needed. Blue Team advanced across the bridge approaching the Forerunner construct. With any luck, they would reach the AI - and the Didact - soon.


	13. Ten: At Vengeance’s End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Credit for the idea that spawned this iteration of this chapter goes to Haruspis on tumblr; you can find the specific post on haruspis dot blog and search for "Halo 5: Reimagining Jul 'Mdama's Fate".

How long had he been locked up in this cell? Days? Weeks? He wasn't sure, even with the regular deliveries of food and the occasional turn through one of the decks. The food was human, bland but filling, nutritious, unlike what he’d been given in the shield world so long ago. And though his hands were bound every time, the “memorial park” was open and airy, filled with bright green plants - alien, _human_ , but they still reminded him of home. ‘Mdama Keep.

Jul ‘Mdama sat in quiet meditation in his cell onboard the human ship _Infinity_. He’d been lucky for once, in a way; the Prometheans turning on him, Sali ‘Nyon’s coup and the breaking of the Storm Covenant, all of it had stripped away any power or pretensions of power that he thought he had. It had made the Didact’s Hand back into a Sangheili, one who was still a pragmatist at heart and sought to survive.

So when the human scientist Halsey had approached him with news of great Forerunner machines waking - waking as _everyone’s_ enemies - he’d helped her contact her UNSC. Told them what was happening, where to find them, and waited for the end that was sure to follow. He’d killed many humans in pursuit of his revenge for his wife Raia’s death - he’d expected the same in return.

It hadn't come. 

The Demons had knocked him unconscious - and he’d woken up here, in this cell. Small for a Sangheili, to be sure, but he wasn't chained to a wall or tortured or interrogated. The Demons who stood guard and brought food were either quiet or coldly courteous, but none of them lifted a hand against him, even though he could see that they very much wanted to.

Then, some time ago - a few human days? - there had been a knock on the door.

He’d lifted his head and blinked. Realizing quickly that a response was expected, he had rasped, “Enter.”

The door thunked several times - the locks disengaging, he was familiar with it now - and then a human had stepped in, with four of the Demons as an escort. The human was a male, armed but not armored like the Demons. Instead, he wore a human officer’s uniform. “Jul ‘Mdama,” he had said, “We have a bit of a problem - but for you, it might just be an opportunity.”

The Sangheili tilted his head. “I am listening.”

“The machines you and Doctor Halsey told us about, the Guardians,” the officer had said, “We need to find the place they’re going after they’re activated. There’s one that we know of that’s not yet active - but it’s on Sanghelios.”

Jul had perked up a little at that, and thought through all the legends he knew, anything that might fit. After a moment, he had it. “Sunaion?” he rumbled, “One of these ‘Guardians’ is the demon that sleeps below the waves?”

The human had seemed both startled and pleased. “That’s what Doctor Halsey tells us,” he answered, “We’re sending in a team, but they need a guide on the ground to get them to the Arbiter. No promises as to what he’ll do to you, but it’ll get you out of _here_.”

Jul hummed. “Two _colo_ with one stone, is it? A guide for your people - but I am also an enemy, so it would be no great loss if I died in the fighting, would it?”

The human tilted his head in acknowledgement but didn't reply.

Jul had considered for only a moment. “Very well. I will do it. Better to die fighting, than locked in a cell.”

He was going home.

* * *

Sali ’Nyon had taken his armor, the armor of the Didact’s Hand, before the arrival of the human ‘Fireteam Osiris’, but the Lich that had come to carry them to Sanghelios had several to spare - those of a Minor, rather than the veteran Jul was normally afforded, but better than nothing. He checked his chosen combat harness carefully before donning it.

He would not be given weapons until they reached the surface of Sanghelios - would not even have his hands unbound until they achieved orbit - so he stood and watched as Halsey and the Demon called Palmer loaded their gear up. There was so much activity all around; the ship was like one of the humans’ beehives. After so long alone in the cell, it was more than a little overwhelming.

After a time, two of the Demons approached, the ones called “Locke” and “Vale”. “You’re loading up, Commander?” the male said.

“We’re going to see if Halsey can speak Guardian.”

“I’ll have a briefing for you by the time we reach Sanghelios,” said the scientist.

Locke nodded. “See you planetside.” Then he moved off with Vale, but not so far that Jul couldn't hear them.

“So you wrote a target dossier on the Arbiter when you were with ONI,” said Vale.

“That was six years ago,” the other Demon answered, “What’s your point?”

“You recommended assassinating him.”

That made Jul look up. If this human had suggested killing the Arbiter, why was he permitting him to set foot on their world? Had he taken leave of his senses? Was he truly as mad as Jul had thought?

“ _After_ he killed millions of our people,” Locke said as a qualifier.

“So why didn’t you?”

“Things changed.”

True enough. Jul followed the human’s gaze to see one of the Arbiter’s Swords of Sanghelios approaching. “The Arbiter is engaged in combat,” said the other Sangheili, “We will get you as close as we can.”

The other Elite looked at Jul, hummed, then turned to head for the Lich docked with the _Infinity_. A dismissal, to be sure, but not disparaging - but also a sign that they were ready to depart. He rose and followed the Sangheili and the Demon Vale onto the ship.

The other Sangheili aboard the Lich ignored him for the most part. These were likely some of the Arbiter’s most trusted Elites, for he wouldn’t have sent anyone else to meet with the humans; few, if any, would be Covenant agents, and they wouldn’t dare expose themselves for their disgraced one-time leader, now gone over to the enemy.

In a way, Jul was grateful. Nothing to tempt him back onto the path that had led to so much destruction on all sides, that had left him adrift and hollow when he finally stepped off it. 

It made him wonder. If he had actually succeeded in avenging his wife, would he have felt better, accomplished, powerful? Or would he have felt the same when it was over?

(Vengeance did not bring back the dead, only continued the suffering of the living.)

* * *

Their Phantom broke away from the Lich when they arrived in orbit, and carried them down to the surface. Vale came over, finally releasing his hands and letting him rub his wrists for a moment to get feeling back. Then she handed him a plasma rifle and a plasma sword - his own sword, the one they had taken from him when he was captured. He nodded his thanks, and she returned the gesture, then pulled her helmet on, her shields coming online with a golden crackle.

The Phantom dropped them off on the surface, in a series of sandstone canyons. _“Arbiter has united the keeps and formed a new alliance - the Swords of Sanghelios. With Arbiter’s victories and the death of Sali ‘Nyon, the Covenant remnants grow desperate,”_ the pilot, one Mahkee ‘Chava, said over the COM as they dropped one by one through the gravity lift, _“They have begun an assault on ‘Vadam lands, targeting Arbiter specifically.”_

“And Arbiter’s location?” Locke asked as they began their advance through the canyons.

_“You will find Arbiter at the Elder Council Chambers. Victory to clan and kin, Spartans. Mahkee out.”_

The Phantom lifted off and disappeared. 

“I’m impressed,” said Vale, watching it go, “Arbiter has females in his ranks. War has traditionally been a male’s job on Sanghelios.”

That made Jul blink a little. Truth be told, he hadn't thought the humans had noticed. But then Locke turned to him. “You know the way from here?”

“Near enough. That is Sunaion over there.” Jul gestured to the city coming into view as the canyons briefly opened up. The domed structures rose up out of a sea in the distance, swarming with Storm Covenant ships, looking like toys from here. “The ‘Vadam Elder Council Chambers will be this way.” He pointed.

Locke nodded. “Lead the way.”

Jul did so, drawing his rifle. Behind him, he heard the one called “Tanaka” whistle and say, “Gonna need some serious backup to get anywhere near there.”

“We need the Swords of Sanghelios,” said Locke, “And that means we need Arbiter.”

The canyons closed in again, the creek below slowly carving its inexorable path through the sandstone. But it wasn't long before they came across Covenant loyalists holding some broken ruins. Jul fought hard himself, but the humans swiftly displayed the power and skill that had earned them the epithet _demons_. Even the Shade wasn't enough to inconvenience them much.

Finally, Locke called, “All clear. There’s a path carved into the cliff here.” Then, “Bodies ahead. Swords of Sanghelios. Covenant must have caught ‘em by surprise.”

Then, a genuine shock - Vale intoned a prayer for the fallen, and in their tongue, too. When Locke asked what she’d said, it was Jul who spoke first. “A burial prayer,” he said, “In your tongue, it is ‘a warrior at birth, a warrior in death.’ I had not thought you were so learned in our ways.”

She shrugged, or seemed to. “I have a gift for languages, and a lot of time when I was younger.”

Jul sensed that there was a longer story there, but it wouldn’t do to pry if she wasn't willing to share; they hadn't pried with him. He inclined his head to her.

Locke was looking at some of the bodies. “Looks like they were ambushed. Not seeing any Covenant casualties.”

Buck tsked. “Arbiter’s an ally,” he growled, “so these dead here are our brothers as far as I’m concerned.”

“Agreed,” said Tanaka, “Time for payback.”

That made Jul look at them, too. He couldn't think of any reason they might say such things to get on his “good side” - he was their prisoner, soon to be the Arbiter’s, and he could hardly guide them into a trap when he no longer had any knowledge of the Covenant’s movements.

Could it really be that they said it because they actually meant it?

“Which way from here, Jul?”

Without a word, the Sangheili pointed, then led the way.

The canyon opened up into a half-cavern; parts of the ceiling had fallen in, but there was enough still above them that it could be called a roof. The Covenant had congregated there in numbers, but not for long. The Spartans and their guide fought their way through them all, and it was impossible not to feel a little bit awed at the relative ease at which they mowed through the Covenant. Jul was having a tougher time of it, but admittedly he had been locked in a cell for who knew how long, unable to practice.

(No one recognized him.)

Vale was awed by something else. “These are pre-Covenant Sangheili ruins. They were already ancient history before humanity built the pyramids.”

They kept moving, calling to each other as they advanced piecemeal up through the cavern. Finally, Jul heard Locke call, “I’m at the top of the ridge! There’s an exit up here!”

“That is the path we seek!” the Sangheili called back, and followed the sounds of fighting up to the ridge. He was the first to reach it after Locke, and both of them laid down cover fire on the few surviving Covenant, letting the other Spartans advance to join them, finishing off the others as they went.

Then they headed through the doorway and into an old carved hall. Not a keep Jul recognized, though perhaps it was ancient ‘Vadam. But whoever they had been, they were _long_ dead now.

As they went, Tanaka said, “The Covenant have been talking like they’ve already got the Arbiter beat.”

“If we lose the Arbiter, reaching the Guardian at Sunaion gets _complicated_ ,” said Locke.

Jul nearly snorted at the magnitude of that understatement. _Complicated?_ More like _impossible_. The Swords of Sanghelios were held together by the strength of the Arbiter’s will; there was no guarantee his successor, if there was one named, would be able to do the same. More than likely, they would fracture as a people and return to what they had been so long ago: a planet and a people of keeps warring amongst themselves, knee-deep in the blood of their ancestors.

As they reached the back of the hall, Locke called, “Covenant flying in.”

“ _Act. Casual._ Maybe they won’t notice us,” said Buck.

“Covies seem convinced they can win this thing,” said Tanaka.

“If they kill the Arbiter, they’ll be well on their way.”

The ships passed them by, heading for a large sandstone structure beyond. There was heavy fighting all around it. “That building’s taking a beating,” Locke observed.

“The Elder Council Chamber,” said Jul, already starting that way, “That is where the Arbiter will be, though I imagine we would have known that without Mahkee telling us. The fighting is always thickest where he is, with every Covenant remnant seeking his death.”

“Let’s go, Osiris!” Locke called, “Double-time!”

They all jumped across a chasm and entered another structure. It could have once been a meeting hall - but it could have also been a coliseum for battle. In the old days, the lines had been blurred so easily.

They would be now as well. There were Covenant soldiers within, once allies, now foes. They were in the process of clearing them out when Mahkee came over the COM again. _“Spartans, I’m coming to you now.”_

“Got it, Mahkee,” Locke answered her, “Spartans, clear the Shipmaster a landing zone.”

A few more Covenant fell. Then Tanaka called out, “Spirit inbound.”

The dropship swung in - and dropped two Hunters into their midst.

Jul was already in motion. There was an empty Shade turret overlooking the battlefield, belonging to the Arbiter’s Swords by the markings. He raced up to it and threw himself into the control seat.

The turret came alive under his touch, and he brought the guns to bear on one of the Hunters. In his short absence, it had herded Vale into a corner and was wearing away at her shields. But it soon turned its attention on him, and he ducked his head to keep out of view but peered through a small gap in the front to keep it in his sights.

Under their combined fire, it wasn't long before it fell. Then they brought their weapons to bear to support the other Spartans against the remaining Hunter, now enraged and sparking. When that one also fell, Locke called the all-clear to Mahkee, who came in with reinforcements and two human machines - Mantises. Jul hopped down from the gun and rejoined the others, where Vale met him.

 _“A battle well-fought,”_ she said in Sangheili, and bumped arm guards with him before Locke called on them to form up.

The door in front of them opened, revealing the interior of a temple filled with more Covenant infantry. Now it was the Mantises’ turn to lead the way, their firepower blasting away the enemy forces with such ease that Jul hardly felt reinforcements were needed. Even when more dropships and drop pods brought in more foes, he only gunned down a few Grunts before the Spartans took care of the rest and continued their advance.

They emerged into an enormous courtyard. “There!” Jul called over the COM to ensure the humans would hear him, even through the mess of fighting there, “The Elder Council Chambers. The Arbiter is somewhere within.” He thought he saw the other Sangheili on the upper deck overlooking the interior courtyard but couldn't be sure at this distance.

 _“Indeed,”_ Mahkee agreed, _“We have lost contact with the Arbiter’s forces within. Hurry, Spartans!”_

“Copy that,” said Locke, turning the Mantis’s guns on the Covenant swarming the steps, “Let’s get the Arbiter out of there.”

This was a fight Jul and the others could do more in. Though he still stuck close to the Spartans, there were many more enemies to fight. He lost count of how many he gunned down, how many weapons he traded out because they’d lost their charge. By the time they reached the inner courtyard, it felt like the battle had gone on for years. He’d taken up the sword of one of the fallen Swords of Sanghelios, his own long since drained of power and abandoned.

Jul followed close behind as they finally entered the Council Chambers proper, finding them overrun with fighting Swords and Covenant. The Covenant seemed to know that this was their last chance to see the Arbiter dead, for they were pushing hard, throwing absolutely everything that had into the effort - to no avail.

“He’s not here!” Buck shouted, even as he slit the throat of a particularly persistent Jackal.

“Up the stairs!” Jul shouted, already charging up the steps, sword in hand.

And there was the Arbiter, armor gleaming in the dusty light, brandishing his golden sword and surrounded by the corpses of the Covenant who thought to bring glory to themselves by slaying him.

In moments, Mahkee’s Phantom arrived, scooped them up, and carried them away.

* * *

Jul was unsurprised to be bound again when they reached the Arbiter’s camp, but - _this_ time, at least - he wasn't locked in a cell. The prisons were likely full of the fiercely loyal Storm Covenant adherents who had been captured, anyway. Even so, he wasn't thrown inside an already overcrowded cell.

Instead he was permitted to sit under sun and sky in the Arbiter’s camp - under guard, of course, but still breathing fresh, clean air. A part of him said that he should not be grateful for these small freedoms, that they were the rights of all Sangheili, but he knew well the fate that awaited many in the prisons. Many would die, one way or another - so many so close bred disease and hunger, and not a few would be killed trying to escape before it could be decided what to do with them. If _he_ was going to die, at least it would be with wind and sun on his hide before the end.

So he watched the activity in the camp, and waited.

And listened.

When Thel arrived, the Arbiter looked him over, then nodded to him as he stepped into his tent, where Locke waited. Jul returned the gesture and slowed his breathing to hear better.

“Spartan Jameson Locke, UNSC. Captain Lasky sends his greetings, and thanks you for your cooperation,” the human said formally.

“ONI, out of the shadows,” the Arbiter returned, a little aggressive, combative, “The spies announce themselves now, Agent Locke?”

“I’m a Spartan now, sir.”

“I know who you are. You were an agent when you volunteered to execute me.”

So he _did_ know. Jul squeezed his mandibles, then let them relax and continued listening.

“I saved your life today.”

“Yet now you hunt another Spartan, the greatest of your clan.”

The Demon. Not just _a_ Demon, _a_ Spartan, but _The_ Demon. _That_ , Jul _hadn't_ heard.

“He’s gone in search of Cortana,” was Locke’s reply, “You might remember her - he went into _High Charity_ to get her.”

“I remember.” The Arbiter’s voice was deep with memory. “He impressed me then, more than any other time. The Oracle said he could fabricate a new key for the Halo, but the Spartan wouldn't hear of leaving her there. Those brave enough go into the heart of a Flood Hive for a single comrade are very few indeed.”

“This time it’s different. We’re… still not _completely_ sure what’s going on, but some circumstantial evidence indicates that she’s the one activating the Guardians. The Chief seems to think otherwise, and rode one of them out to wherever she is. We need to follow, and find out for sure.”

“And you think you can ride this _Guardian_ the way the Demon did?”

“Possibly. We won’t know unless we try.”

The Arbiter hummed. “Sunaion is the Covenant’s final stronghold on Sanghelios. We will move only when victory is assured.” Then the Sangheili stepped from the tent and headed off into the camp to speak with his warriors.

Jul watched him go, Locke not far behind. The Spartan headed over to speak with Halsey where she stood on a balcony overlooking the camp. She gestured to a hologram of a Forerunner machine, a Constructor, and seemed to explain what she wanted, but they were too far away to make out. 

But he did overhead some other conversations between the Spartans.

“The Master Chief worked with Cortana for a while, right?” Vale only half-asked.

“Yes,” Locke confirmed, “He considered her a close friend.”

“It’s unusual to anthropomorphize an AI so deeply to consider them a friend.”

“Unusual, but not unheard of.”

Vale hummed, then continued, “I’m reading the Blue Team file you assembled. I knew the rumors about the original Spartans. The kidnappings, the conscriptions. I never wanted to believe it.”

“Lesson I learned about history a long time ago,” said Buck, “it’s full of things you don't want to believe.”

“And getting fuller all the time,” Tanaka added.

Wasn't that the truth.

“After all Halsey did to the Master Chief and Blue Team, and when they were kids no less,” Buck went on, “after _all_ that, she still acts like she cares about them?”

“Psych eval says that Halsey thinks of the Chief as her son,” Locke answered him, “She has a motherly attitude towards all of her Spartans.”

“I’m glad I haven’t read that psych report. Not sure I’d ever feel clean again.”

* * *

Jul was left in the camp under guard while the Arbiter’s forces went… wherever. Eventually, most returned, including the Spartans. They brought a Constructor with them, which raced off for Halsey the moment it arrived.

Whatever they were doing with it, it took some time for it to finish. During the interim, the Arbiter came over to see him, and - much to Jul’s surprise - brought food to share a meal. “Judging by the look of you, the humans did not starve you,” the other Sangheili said, “but I cannot imagine that it was anything like home.”

“...No, it was not,” Jul said finally. The Arbiter removed his manacles and permitted him the freedom to eat.

“I must confess, I am curious,” said ‘Vadam, “I know of ‘Nyon’s usurpation, but there must be more than that. Why the change of heart, Jul?”

“Many things, and more every day. ‘Nyon and the Prometheans’ betrayal stripped the lies from my vision, the ones others told to me and the ones I told to myself. And now this.” He looked over to where several Sangheili were gathered around Vale, no doubt chattering with the human in their native tongue. He remembered the prayer she had said for the fallen Swords of Sanghelios, Buck professing that these were their brothers, Tanaka’s vow of retribution for their deaths. “I believed it impossible for us to ever make peace with humanity, to work side by side towards a common goal, but here we are.”

“The universe seems to enjoy making a mockery of what we believe,” Thel agreed quietly, “We believed the Forerunners were gods, and burned dozens of human worlds at the command of the Prophets, but it was all a lie. And when we were betrayed, it might have been self-interest - the humans say ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ - but they still came to our aid, allied with us, and we fought side by side to stop Truth from killing us all.”

Jul inclined his head in agreement. It was true. “After everything started coming down, I thought back to my last moments with my wife. She was the reason I formed the Storm Covenant, to get revenge for her death, but she never cared for vengeance for our fallen or finishing what the Prophets started. She was more concerned with the future of our people, how we had become dependent on the other members of the Covenant, and now we had to begin anew, to relearn things we once relegated to others whom we took for granted.” He shook his head, closed his eyes. “She did not want to spill more blood, especially not our own. I didn’t listen.”

“She sounds wise indeed. We are all less for her loss.”

* * *

The sun was sinking toward the horizon when the Constructor raced off once more, and the camp exploded in a frenzy to follow it. Again, Jul was left under guard, but he didn't chafe at it. Instead, he watched the distant battle in Sunaion from the edge of the cliffs.

And when the massive Guardian finally emerged from the dark sea below, glowing bright over Sunaion, he prayed. But for what, he didn't know.


	14. Eleven: Subjugating Heaven and Earth

The Guardian from Sunaion transitioned out of Slipspace above Genesis, just like the others, and reassembled across from another just like it, hanging together in space.

"Is that it?" Tanaka asked.

"Where are we? Is this the place?" Vale added, but then sections of the Guardian began to move under them, flexing and rolling like it was trying to shake them off. They weren't able to hold on and began falling down one side of its long metal body.

"Activate mag boots!" Locke ordered, and finally managed to stop falling before he reached terminal velocity. The rest of his team did the same.

"Like standing on the edge of a skyscraper," Tanaka commented, "This is bad."

"We'll be fine," Locke answered, moving to one side as a chunk of falling building appeared on his motion tracker. Bits of debris from Sunaion were falling all around them, forcing them to shift aside and let them plunge past.

"Chief's down there, huh? - Wait. Look." Tanaka pointed.

The star road was snaking slowly through the sky in the distance, coiled in a loose knot close to an unknown Forerunner structure but still filling half the sky. There were tiny flashes of light below it - gunfire, grenades. Combat.

"Man, how does that thing even stay up like that?" Buck asked.

"This is Spartan Locke broadcasting on all UNSC frequencies. Sierra 117, please respond."

Static and silence.

"Guardian's moving again," Buck said suddenly, right before it began rolling beneath their feet once more.

"Get moving," Locke ordered, "Reach a low enough altitude where it's safe to jump. Stay in the middle and watch out for gaps!"

They jumped from segment to segment, racing for the ground so far below. It took far longer than they would have liked, with several close calls, not just with nearly-missed jumps, but also Crawlers that spawned along the construct's length. The Guardian finally knocked them off it, but they fell within sight of the ground. All four of them fired their thrusters to land heavily but safely on solid earth. "All right, let's try this again. Spartan Jameson Locke to Sierra 117."

More static.

"Chief, we're here to help-"

" _Then_ be quiet _for a second - I'm trying to focus."_

Osiris recoiled a little at his slightly sharp reply, but in the distance, the star road was becoming more active. It started whipping its coils toward the ground, targeting something the S-IVs couldn't see. When the sound reached them, the impacts were like the rumble of distant thunder, both heard and felt. After almost a full minute, it calmed again.

Then the Chief came back on. _"Cortana, are you there?"_

" _Yes, but I don't have long."_

" _If this installation's Monitor is still active, direct them to Fireteam Osiris's location, tell them to help. I might not want them_ here _, but I don't want them_ dead _, either."_

" _Consider it done."_

The S-IVs looked at one another, then started moving. There was a Forerunner structure ahead, and they entered, stepping onto an elevator platform within. It descended.

When they reached the bottom of the shaft, there was a Monitor waiting for them. "More humans. Greetings!" it - _she_ \- said cheerfully, her "eye" glowing a soft purple, "I am 031 Exuberant Witness, Monitor of the Genesis installation. Welcome! Has Cortana called you as well to stop the Didact?"

" _The Didact?!"_ the Spartans all cried at once.

" _That's_ what the Chief was going to say - contact from Cortana and the _Didact_ ," Vale continued with a groan.

"So Davis _was_ right," Tanaka murmured.

"Cortana didn't call us," Locke told the Monitor, "but we're here to help anyway. What can you tell us about what's going on?"

"The Didact seeks to abort the Librarian's plans," said Exuberant, leading the way forward, "From what Cortana has told me, he has tried twice before to eradicate your people, to prevent them from claiming the Forerunner Mantle of Responsibility."

"The Mantle?" Tanaka repeated in confusion.

"A forced peace upon the galaxy, with the threat of death overwhelming any celebration of life," the Monitor replied sadly, "Unless you join with the other humans and stop the Didact and the Warden, that is your future."

"You've seen the other humans?"

"Oh yes. The Didact and the Warden have been attempting to delay them, but even so they have been moving toward the Gateway for some time. It is not far from here.

"By the way, there are a number of hostile visitors outside," she added as the hatch slid open in front of them, "so I brought you _this_. I assume it will be of use to you? Cortana seemed to think so."

A UNSC tank materialized in front of them.

" _A Scorpion?"_ said Buck, "Yeah, I reckon we can make use of that."

"I found it among the detritus of Guardian 3209's arrival," she told them as they mounted up, "The Guardians' Slipspace bubbles are bringing a considerable amount of rubbish from their origin planets."

The Scorpion's engines turned over, and Locke started it rolling. There were Ghosts waiting for them around the bend, but they were no match for the Scorpion's main gun. He wasn't quick enough to destroy the Phantom that brought them, however, and as it flew off, Buck commented, "Someone should tell these guys they already lost the war."

"They want a fight, let's give 'em one," Tanaka replied.

As they approached a bridge over a canyon river, another Slipspace portal opened up, disgorging another Guardian and a number of Phantoms and Banshees. "Why has he called so many?" Exuberant asked half-rhetorically, "A single Guardian can effectively police a solar system. This show of force is unsettling."

"Sorry, _police?!_ " Vale repeated, alarmed, _"Show of force?!_ "

" _Didact doesn't want to_ police _humanity,"_ Cortana said suddenly over the COM, _"He wants to_ eradicate _them -_ that's _the reason behind the numbers. Hello, Osiris, nice to finally meet you. Exuberant, I'm working on restoring some of your administration privileges, both for Genesis and the ecumene at large, but I have to hide the controls to keep Didact and Warden from revoking them again. Stay alert, because Blue Team and I might need something that's keyed exclusively to you now."_

"Understood!" the Monitor replied cheerfully, "I will be vigilant listening for you!"

She was gone just as fast as she had come.

"So that's Cortana, huh?" said Tanaka, "Well, she _seems_ nice enough. I guess I can kinda see why the Chief… well. We all heard what Davis said."

Locke hummed in acknowledgement.

"You know, of all the things I _expected_ her to say, _that_ wasn't one of them," Buck said, hopping down from the tank to claim a Ghost, even as Genesis spawned turrets and Prometheans in an attempt to stop them, "I mean, wasn't the Chief's generation brainwashed out the ass to prevent this kind of thing? Oh, excuse me, _indoctrinated_ out the ass."

"The UNSC can't plan for absolutely _every_ possibility," Locke answered, "And to be honest, I don't think 'the Master Chief falling in love with his onboard AI' was even on anyone's radar to have a contingency _for_. It certainly wasn't on _mine_." He blasted a Knight Commander to pieces, then turned the main gun on the others harrying them. There were Covenant as well, of course, but the Prometheans were the biggest threat; with their Watchers, they could respawn if given the slightest bit of leeway.

The Phaeton hovering overhead went the way of the rest, then the Scorpion rolled to a stop in front of a metal barricade. "Exuberant?"

"One moment; I will open this." A few seconds later, the door hissed open, letting them into a short cave system, and the Monitor zipped ahead. "Follow me! The Gateway is almost ready! Hurry!"

"What's the Gateway?" Tanaka asked.

"It is a bridge between the Domain and Genesis. With it, both Cortana and the Didact will be reborn into the physical world. I understand that the other humans have a plan to take advantage of this, but they are reluctant to discuss it over the communication networks. Anyone could be listening in."

"Understandable," said Vale, "Let's link up with Blue Team ASAP."

As they rounded the corner, the large building came into view again, the star road snaking through the sky around it, the energy from the Gateway's fields seeming to make it ripple and flash. "That's where they are."

"Indeed," said Exuberant, "Cortana has been directing them through the Gateway, but both Warden and Didact have committed considerable efforts toward delaying their progress. They are preparing for _something_ , but exactly what is unknown. Cortana seems to believe they are readying the Guardians for deployment against human worlds."

Buck cursed, and so did Tanaka. "Double-time, Osiris!" Locke shouted, firing on a Wraith that thought to stop them, "We need to find the Chief and Blue Team _now_!"

Another Guardian materialized as they climbed a rise. Beyond was another fight between the native Prometheans and the invading Covenant, one less lopsided than it appeared; despite their lower numbers, the Prometheans were giving as good as they got.

There was a pair of Wraiths immediately in front of them, and they were the first to go, followed by the turrets, then everything else. Locke left the infantry to Buck and Vale and their hijacked Ghosts, focusing the Scorpion on other, heavier targets.

"You may want to hurry," Witness offered suddenly, "Didact is attempting to activate several high-level communications systems."

"How much time do we have?"

"Very little," was the reply, "Not enough - almost none, in fact."

The S-IV team moved through the winding paths between the rock spurs and reached another river canyon. Witness said there was supposed to be a bridge, and after a moment she was able to flip it back on. They rolled across - only to meet the Warden again on the other side.

"Monitor," he boomed, spawning a pair of turrets as well, "why do you aid these _humans_?"

"Oh dear, the Warden has found us."

"We've dealt with him before," Buck informed her, already swinging his Ghost around to hose plasma fire at the armiger.

"And you likely will again," she said, zipping past to dodge a Slipspace sphere aimed for her, "He is rather… _tenacious_."

" _Like a cockroach,"_ Cortana said disdainfully, _"Or a_ rat _. Alway gnawing on my wires…"_

"Cortana!" Witness cried joyfully, "The human fireteam is on approach to the Gateway - they will be with the others shortly!"

" _Good. Blue Team is holding position for now, waiting for you all to catch up. They needed a breather anyway; both Warden and Didact have been pushing hard."_

"Tell them we'll be there as soon as we can."

" _Affirmative, Spartan Locke."_

They rounded the bend and came in sight of the Gateway. The Warden met them there, too, with two of his many bodies and an army of Prometheans. The Spartans ignored him as he started talking shit, instead focusing fire on the Prometheans to cut off his support. When as many of them were dead as could be reasonably killed, they all turned their guns on him. Tanaka found an Incineration Cannon among the weapons dropped by the defeated Knights and used it to great effect, destroying one of the bodies all on her own before they all turned on the other.

When it, too, was destroyed, they followed Exuberant into the Gateway and through several halls to the chamber where Blue Team had taken refuge. It looked like it had once been a barracks of some sort, but now the S-IIs had turned it into a defensible position and looked to have been holding it for some time, based on the scars from weapons' fire.

The S-IIs all automatically lifted their weapons when the S-IVs came in, then lowered them again and relaxed a little. The S-IVs did the same, and Locke said, "What's the plan?"

The Chief had been down on one knee, but now he rose and said, "We-" He stopped abruptly, head snapping up to look at the walls above them.

The others followed his gaze, and for a second there was nothing there. Locke was about to ask what the Chief saw - but then the wall started dissolving, flaking away right at that spot, even as the S-II brought his weapon up to fire. He caught the first Crawler through full in the face and snarled, " _Fucking hard light! Weapons free!_ "

The walls continued to dissolve around them, more Prometheans pouring in, gunning for them with vigor.

Then it was the Didact's turn to speak. _"You're too late, humans,"_ he rumbled over the COM, _"The greatest of all their warriors assembled here before me - I will end you all at once."_

" _Exuberant, you have the portal network now!"_ Cortana cried, _"Get them out of there!"_

"Affirmative!"

Energy bloomed around them - there was a moment of simultaneous compression and expansion and nausea-inducing spinning - and then they were gone, and reappeared somewhere else, inside another unknown Forerunner structure.

All of them staggered, but the Chief actually _fell_ , a curse on his lips. He tried to rise again, but Linda pushed him back down. "For fuck's sake, Chief, rest a second. You've been working hardest out of all of us, and walking wounded, too."

"What?!" Kelly said sharply, "He's not - he hasn't even been hit!"

"He's been walking wounded for _months_ , Kelly," the other woman responded, "I didn't say anything before now, 'cause it wasn't really affecting his performance in the field."

The Chief let out an almost bitter huff. "Should have known you'd spot me. Got the sharpest eyes of _all_ Spartans, no matter what generation." He snapped his suppressor onto his back plates, then pulled his legs in, folded them in front of him and put his arms on his head to take their weight off his chest, let it expand more as he breathed.

"Sir, if you're wounded-" Locke began, but the other Spartan cut him off.

"'I should have sought medical attention'?" he said, "Sorry, Spartan Locke, but this isn't the kind of thing the UNSC can treat. It's not contagious in this form, though, so you don't need to worry about getting it, but _believe me_ when I say that if I _did_ get this particular symptom _properly_ treated, I couldn't ever return to service."

That made them all go silent. Then Vale whispered, "You're giving the UNSC what time you can, before you have to leave for good."

He nodded.

The S-IVs all let out a breath at that. "How long do you have?" Locke asked.

The Chief panted for a moment, then said, "This is - probably going to be my last mission."

"Jesus _fuck_ ," said Buck, expressing what they were all thinking. ONI propaganda had made _all_ the Spartans but _especially_ the Chief into something akin to _gods_ for the UNSC and UEG. What was it even going to be _like_ without him?

Locke let out another breath. "Alright. We can worry about that after this mission is over. Exuberant said you had a plan."

"I did say that, that is true. Now whether or not I was lying has yet to be determined."

" _John_ ," said Kelly, faintly exasperated.

"I'm kidding. Exuberant, lockdown all local COM channels," he ordered, "Nothing in, absolutely _nothing_ out. Don't want the Didact or the Warden overhearing."

The Monitor worked for a moment, then said, "Done, although I do not know how long it will hold. I will watch closely."

"Thank you," said the Spartan. Then he turned to the S-IVs. "All of this is, of course, a trap. The Didact can't manifest out here yet, and he knows by now that all of us are too skilled for the Warden and his Prometheans to kill in open combat. He's trying to capture us in a way that will render us inert, letting him dispose of us how he likes, and we're going to let him do it."

" _What?!_ " Tanaka protested, "Chief, I know you had some wild plans back in the day, but this one takes the cake! What good will _that_ do?!"

"Cortana says that the way he'll do it is via a Cryptum," the Chief answered, "You might know it if you were at Requiem the first time, or read the reports."

"That - sphere-thing he was flying around in?" Buck said.

"That's the one. The thing about a Cryptum is that while they _were_ used as prisons of a sort, they also can be used to allow the user access to the Domain, even without technological aids. Forerunners, at least. But I've already touched the Domain once - or _it_ touched _me_ , under its own power and far from here, and it's much stronger around places like Genesis and its Gateway. Here, the Domain is... _brought close_ to the real world, forms as real a bridge as it ever does between the two - and unfortunately for the Didact, that bridge is a two-way street. If _he_ wants to come _out_ , he has to take the risk that _we'll_ get _in_ , and come for him."

"You really think we can do that? Fight him inside this 'Domain' and win?"

He nodded. "The Domain is - conscious, _aware_ , in its own way. It doesn't like the Didact, and it's been helping Cortana hide from him and the Warden. It was mostly destroyed by the Halo Array, but it's been rebuilding itself since then. Unfortunately it's still too weak to do the job itself, but it will _definitely_ let _us_ in to get rid of them."

There was a sudden distant but still unmistakable sense of _:agreement, confirmation:_.

The Chief jolted to his feet. "Domain? You there?"

Again, _:agreement, confirmation:_.

" _Whoa,_ " said Buck, reeling a little, "That is _trippy as hell_."

"Hold on," said the Chief, "We'll be there soon. Keep Cortana safe."

_:Acknowledgement, affirmation:. :Haste!:._

The S-II looked at them all. "Let's move."

They readied themselves, taking inventory of their weapons and ammo and trading gear amongst themselves until they were satisfied. Then they moved out. By unspoken consent, the other Spartans shunted the wounded Chief into the center of the pack, earning a faintly disgruntled hum, but he didn't fight them on it.

Exuberant led the way through the hatches ahead of them, and finally they emerged into open air. Before them, a massive Forerunner structure stretched away into the sky, a stepped ramp of sorts, surrounded by tiered rings with gaps on the side facing them.

" _Still you persist. For how much longer, I wonder?"_

Didact.

Somehow, the Chief marked the spawn locations for the Prometheans before the energy even began to build. They flared high and released, spilling Crawlers onto the structure ahead. Blue and Osiris fanned out and picked their targets, killing them one right after the other.

They fought their way through the tier, and when the last Knight fell, the hatch at the back opened, letting them out onto a platform. There, a hard light lift spawned, and they stepped on warily, the star road coming down to snake around them.

But it did not dissolve again beneath their feet. Instead it uncoupled from the first structure and started ascending through a series of small (relatively small) hard light shields, which dispersed in front of them and reappeared behind them.

They all distinctly heard the Chief mutter, "Pointless Forerunner theatrics," but none of them said anything.

(Privately, they all agreed.)

They arrived at the second tier, the star road gliding back up overhead, and again, the Chief marked the spawn points before they even began to appear. They all picked their targets and got to work, Tanaka taking over as Linda's spotter to let Fred and Buck tag-team a Knight Commander, even as Kelly played rabbit for Locke, Vale, and the Chief.

One by one, the Prometheans fell, and they advanced up the structure, following the ramps up to another level, where a small army of Alpha Crawlers waited.

That certainly explained why the Chief had directed Fred to scoop up the splinter turret one of the Soldiers had dropped. He opened fire, destroying them in groups, and when the magazine was empty, he bodily threw it into another knot of Crawlers, crushing at least two and injuring a few more. The Spartans were able to gun down the rest with ease, and they headed up another short ramp, where they were met with more Soldiers and a pair of Focus Turrets.

The Spartans all darted into cover and started firing, giving Kelly cover to sprint back and grab another fallen splinter turret, which she used to great effect. Then they continued their advance through a narrow hall ahead, which opened up into another section of the tier.

Then Cortana came over the COM. _"John, Slipspace rupture - it's one of ours!"_

They looked up to see that she was right. A Slipspace bubble appeared overhead, but it seemed like nothing came out of it before it closed. But then another female voice spoke - the same one from Meridian. _"We made it!"_

Then a male. _"Dad, you there?"_

"Joyeuse, Durandal, we're in the Gateway," said the Chief, " _Nighthawk_ , deploy combat personnel at our location, then stand off and wait for further orders. Spartans, clear an LZ!"

" _Understood,"_ the female voice - Joyeuse – said, suddenly all business, _"_ Nighthawk _on approach - stand by."_

The Spartans started gunning for the Prometheans that appeared ahead of them - and the Warden body that did too, until Cortana shouted, _"Oh no you fucking don't!"_ and ripped it away.

The Forerunner ancilla could still talk shit over the COMs, however. _"We mean to bring peace to the galaxy, the way it was once,"_ he intoned almost solemnly, _"but you answer our call with weapons fire. So it has always been with_ your kind _, so it seems it will always be. There is no place in the galaxy for those who refuse to lay down their weapons."_

The Spartans drove the Prometheans back. Then there was a rush of wind overhead, accompanied by a soft hum, and what looked like a bright hole opened up in the air above them. Then five figures in armor jumped out and fell in with them, and the hole disappeared, the hum fading into the distance.

The new arrivals wore what was unmistakably MJOLNIR armor, only a hundred generations more advanced, with Forerunner weapons in hand. Then the male voice - Durandal - came over the COM. _"What's the plan, Dad?"_ he asked, joining his fire with the Chief's to take down another splinter turret Soldier.

"COMs aren't secure," the other man answered, "Just follow us for now."

" _Copy that."_

They all continued moving up through the Gateway, now absolutely _mowing_ through the Prometheans, even though the Didact kept spawning more and more and _more_ in an attempt to slow their advance. Even the snipers couldn't halt them for long; Linda and one of the new arrivals were more than their equal, even with lesser weapons, and they soon claimed their binary rifles for their own.

They advanced through another hall and into another section of the structure. _"Too near,"_ said the Warden, _"The threat draws too near, and has grown too great! Look, Didact! Some of our own have turned against us, given the_ humans _our_ _armor and weapons!"_

" _I see it,"_ the Forerunner growled, _"It is no surprise that the Librarian's plan still has its adherents, even now. I am not ashamed to say that once I was one of them. I permitted my wife to spare them after our war, against my better judgement, thinking that she might shape them into something good for the universe - she_ was _the_ Lifeshaper _, after all. But, no more. Humanity will never attain the Mantle, never rise up again against your masters. This will be the end of you, once and for all."_

More than two dozen Warden bodies dropped in at the far end of the courtyard. Cortana cursed him out - in an unknown language, to be sure, but the tone was unmistakable - and tore away all but five of them. The Spartans handled them easily, though at one point the Warden said, "Oh, you approach me?" when the Chief darted in closer to get that body in range of his Incineration Cannon.

"Can't beat the shit out of you without getting closer!" the Spartan shouted back, and fired even as the new arrivals cackled, along with Joyeuse and other unknowns over the COM.

When the last one was destroyed, taking all the Prometheans with him, the Didact came back on. _"You impress me once again, warriors. Come then. You humans sought the Didact - you will have him."_

A hard light bridge materialized, leading up to the final structure. The Chief called the star road down, and it shrank and coiled back up into its little ball. He tucked it away, then led the way up and into a wide chamber, angled protrusions jutting out a little ways from the walls and a light bridge dead ahead, leading to a console of some sort.

"Come on!" The Spartan sprinted for it, and the others followed. Then, quieter, "Three… two… one."

All of them froze as their armor locked up without warning, shields shimmering.

" _Did you really think it would be so easy as that?"_

Now the Didact appeared. He looked very similar to what he had been in the flesh, but there was something definitely _wrong_ with him, some distortion of proportions and discoloration to his form and armor. He didn't seem to notice it. "Did you imagine you could just walk in here as you did before? Just shoot or stab or blow me up?" He laughed softly, walking slowly towards them. "I have already arisen beyond you, humans. And once I have rid myself of your irritating ancilla, I will be free to undo whatever the Librarian has done to inoculate you to the Composer, and add you to my army. You especially will make a _fine_ Commander, Warrior."

He lifted his hands, and they managed to look up to see the ceiling panels part, revealing the blue and silver Cryptum - just as the Chief had said. It descended, its own panels sliding back, and swallowed them all whole.

Their vision blurred, darkened, they felt like they were falling… And then it was gone just as suddenly as it had come.

And now they were somewhere else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a gore warning for the next chapter, but it's only 1 (and a half?) paragraphs, which will be marked in the chapter notes so anyone who wants to avoid it can skip it.


	15. Twelve: Darkness’ Strongest Soldier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: **GORE/BODY HORROR WARNING FOR THIS CHAPTER!!!** Skip the paragraph immediately after "And then the undersuit came off, and the thin clothing and bandages beneath it. No amount of discipline could have stopped the horrified gasps that tore through the room." And maybe the paragraph after "The S-IIs were pale, yes - they above all rarely spent time out of armor, rarely got sun - but the Chief looked ghastly." as well, depending on your tolerance level.

They were somewhere mostly dark, lit only by a brilliant moon. It was enough to let them see the warped, scorched, almost oily ruins around them, all that remained of once-magnificent structures. They gleamed rainbow-black like obsidian in the silvery light.

“Where are we?” Buck asked quietly.

“The Domain,” John answered, “A hundred thousand years, and it’s still in pretty bad shape. Domain?”

_:Confirmation. Haste!:_

A hazy shape appeared in their midst, about the size and shape of a human child, and it scrambled up onto the Chief’s back, then pointed into the ruins. John raced off in the direction it indicated without hesitation, and the other Spartans followed. 

The landscape seemed to rush away under their feet with unnatural speed, and soon they came upon a building that seemed more intact than the rest, though it too would have been condemned on Earth.

 _:Haste, haste!:,_ said the Domain, urging them on even as it fought to hang onto the Chief as he ran, _:Affection imprisoned, killing intent!:._

“‘Affection imprisoned’?” Vale repeated, “What’s-”

“The Didact’s got Cortana,” John growled, voice strangely distorted, “I told her to try to keep him in the Domain for as long as possible after we entered the Cryptum, to give us time to get in and ready to fight.” He put on a burst of speed and vanished inside the building. The Spartans followed just in time to see him rip the Didact away from Cortana, who was held spread-eagle by a squad of Prometheans, and launch the Forerunner through the remnants of a wall.

The Warden and the Prometheans shrieked and charged him, but a second later his armor matched that of the _Fleet_ ’s Spartans, and he had two poison-green plasma swords in hand. “Call the others!” he shouted, now back to back with Cortana, who had similar blue swords in hand, “Bring them in! Domain, if I give you a terrain skin, can you hold it?!”

_:Confirmation!:._

John nodded sharply, then said to Cortana, “Cover me for a sec!”

“You got it!” She lashed out at the Prometheans encircling them, moved so smoothly that she looked like she’d been born with the blades in her hand. Four of the insectoid machines dissolved with a single swing, and more followed.

The Chief went to one knee even as the others started engaging the Forerunner and his servants - his armor wouldn’t adapt to their weapons here; he had to actually work at defending himself. The Spartan held his hands apart, and energy built between them, an intense data burst. Then, when the construction was complete, he shoved it into the ground and released it, a ripple of light rolling through the ruins - and then their surroundings changed into something more comfortable, more familiar.

A Flood Hive.

More of the _Fleet_ ’s Spartans started appearing not long after, connecting to their siblings and using that to pull themselves into the Domain. They threw themselves into engaging the Prometheans, luring them into the halls they knew so very well; they all knew that the Commander had claimed the Didact. One of the squads fell in with Fireteam Osiris, the Parallel Blue Team joining with the Origin, and together they targeted the Warden.

Joyeuse and Durandal stepped up next to their parents, weapons in hand, and started targeting the Warrior-Servant, tag-teaming him the same way John and Cortana were - with the ease of familiarity and long experience working together in combat situations. 

But no matter how hard they hit him, ranged or melee or a purely mental attack, the Didact was still tough, and they just couldn't seem to get through his shields. “Dad!” Durandal yelled, “We need to force him to lower his defenses! You know him best!”

That made the Didact laugh. “ _You?_ Know _me?_ ” He seemed to find that immensely amusing. “You know me as the boot about to crush you, no more!”

John dodged out of the way as the Forerunner struck out at them. Durandal was right. He knew the Didact of the Parallel, and that one was similar enough to this one for the Spartan to read him. What could he use-?

And then he remembered. “Cortana!”

She appeared at his side. He gripped her forearm and passed the data, the knowledge of what he needed and what she needed to pull it off, to buy him time. When she had processed it - in the blink of an eye - she nodded and grinned sharply, then disappeared into the chaos around them.

John grinned too, then got in position and charged the Warrior-Servant. As expected, the Didact seized him by the throat and lifted him off his feet. “You truly thought you could defeat me with such flagrant tactics, human?!” the Promethean roared, fist going tight, but John’s armor - his firewalls - didn't yield.

Then the human gasped. “ _Librarian?!_ ”

Even though he suspected a trap, the Didact still turned, and saw.

The Librarian threw herself at him, clawing at his armor. “ _That’s all you ever do!”_ she cried, tears of rage and grief pouring down her face, “ _Kill my children! Why?! WHY?!”_

The Didact was caught off guard for only an instant - but it was enough.

A second later, he was _slammed_ to the growth-covered deck below, and a soft, sinister laugh rolled through the Hive. It made everything else _stop_ , made everyone turn to look.

A _horror_ held the Didact pinned in one great hand, its bulk leaning over the Warrior-Servant. **“Did you think me _defeated_ , Didact?”** the Primordial said, and laughed again, softer, more _sinister_ , echoing in the sudden silence. **“Do you have a moment? _Just_ a moment. That’s all it will take.”**

The segmented tail extending from its head lengthened, curved around over its shoulder, the wicked barb at the tip preparing to plunge down into the Forerunner.

The Didact _howled_ \- in fear, in fury - and threw all of his power at the _thing_ above him. He managed to knock it away - and the Master Chief lost its shape, returned to his own, hurled back some distance from the Forerunner.

The Spartan flipped back to his feet, saw the Promethean charging him with insane rage in his eyes, his face twisted into an ugly snarl, and turned to run, even as the wall behind him rippled, a Flood Porta appearing there. There was enough space between them that it closed before the Didact reached it, but it opened again into a round hall covered in Flood growths. There was a Porta a short way in one direction, but the Spartan had run the other way, was even now gaining distance on him.

The Forerunner roared and threw out a constraint field, catching the Spartan and yanking him back. “You think to strip me of my defenses?! It will take more than that, human! Let’s see how well yours hold up!”

He tore away the shields and armor - they came away so easy that he almost laughed - but then his eyes widened in horror.

Cortana laughed in his grip. “Wrong one, asshole!”

Then the Forerunner choked and staggered. He swayed for a moment, grip loosening and letting the AI fall, then he sank to his knees. John pulled the sword back out of his stomach and, in one smooth swing, decapitated what was left of the once-great Promethean.

His body fell to the ground, head rolling away, then dissolved into flakes like the Knights - but these were not bright gold, but green-black sludge. John banished his remains from the Domain, purging all his data before it could take hold and respawn, then gestured to Cortana. They stepped back through the first Porta to the main chamber, where the Spartans kept the Warden at bay. Yet it seemed he was even harder to kill than the Didact; whenever they took down one body, another appeared in a blink of an eye to reengage them. 

John looked back to Cortana, but she was already calling up a nasty-looking spear, a virus, red-edged and wicked. The Spartan dropped to one knee and planted his hands in the Flood growths below, shouting, “Clear a path!”

The Spartans parted at once, and some of the Flood growths at the Warden’s feet bloomed into tentacles and seized the ancilla. He writhed and tore at the flesh, but it still held. Cortana threw the spear with every bit of power she could muster, and it flew true, shattering his defenses and sinking into the Warden’s core, releasing its viral code.

The ancilla _shrieked_ and started to dissolve into nothing - but then Flood flesh - _enemy_ Flood flesh – burst to life between his segments. 

_“Logic plague!”_ John shouted, _“Get back!_ ”

The Spartans all threw themselves away, scrambling back over each other to put distance between them and the Warden. But the ancilla didn't do anything to them; instead its eyes, now vivid acid green, found John’s. **“We are _coming_!”** it snarled even as it continued to fall apart, **“ _We are coming for you!_ And this time there will be no mercy - only _judgement_!”**

And then it was gone. The Domain went still and silent, but only for a moment. John dispelled the Flood Hive skin, the ruins folding back in around them, and said, “Cortana.”

At once she called up something like a holotable and started pulling up data screens, running scans through the Domain and the Forerunner networks. A hologram of the Milky Way appeared in the center of the ruined hall, even as all the Spartans gathered there once more. Then the galaxy seemed to release a pulse that rippled outward in a wave in all directions. Its size remained constant, the Milky Way shrinking inside - and then _red_ started appearing, a great mass of _red_ , still well outside the galaxy but making its inexorable way towards them.

Someone cursed softly.

John buried his face in his hands for a second and let out a long, heavy breath. “Why does this bullshit always happen to us?”

“ _Excuse me?_ ” said Cortana, “What’s with this _us_? Why does this bullshit always happen to _you_? You're the one who started this mess by getting taken to the Parallel.”

“And _you_ were the one who took the _Autumn_ to Alpha Halo, so do we really want to start pointing fingers? But it doesn’t matter how it all got going; the Flood’s still coming. We need to beat it to the punch, intercept it before it reaches us and disappears into the stars; we are _not_ fighting _another_ Forerunner-Flood War, not on my watch.”

“Slipspace travel is too slow, in either direction,” said Parallel Serin-019, “If we jumped out to meet them, we’d be sitting ducks. Not to mention the Slipspace debt from moving an armada big enough to stop _that_ would mean halting all non-essential traffic throughout the _entire galaxy_ , maybe for _years_.”

“So we need something different, something _faster_ , that doesn't use Slipspace.”

“Even _we_ don't have that kind of technology. That’s like Precursor-level stuff.”

John opened his mouth, then seemed to have several realizations at once. “Domain!”

The blurry child-shape reappeared, perched on his back once again. _:Query?:_.

“How much Precursor information do you still carry? Do you know if neural physics uses or can be used to generate and manipulate exotic matter?”

_:Investigating:._

But his question made Cortana perk up, the brilliant AI already following his train of thought. “You think we can use the star road to make a _wormhole_?”

“It’s one of the few options we have,” John answered, “Silver-Moon theorized it was possible, but there was so much we didn't know about neural physics and no real way of testing it, and as far as I know, the Gravemind never tried it during the Forerunner-Flood War. If _we_ can do it, that’s transport down, which is the biggest problem. Everything else is mostly battlefield tactics.”

“We don't have a big enough gun to take out an _entire Flood armada_.”

“Don’t we?” He held out a hand, and the image of a Halo ring appeared above it.

Cortana frowned at it for a second - and then she realized. “Like the Battle of the Ark - if we move it out beyond the bounds of the galaxy-”

“-we can fire it without fear. But we need an isolated system to rally at,” said the Spartan, “preferably one with a Wolf-Rayet or another high-temperature star. Once it’s done, we can’t just _leave_ the Flood out there, drifting; we have to bring it in and destroy it. I’d suggest dropping it in a black hole, but I want _confirmation_.”

“So flinging a Flood fleet into a star to burn up is our next best option, since we’ll never actually _see_ it cross the event horizon of a singularity.” She was already pulling up the info, highlighting possible systems in the hologram of the Milky Way.

 _:Success! Confirmation, affirmation!:_.

“Star roads can do exotic matter? Negative energy density?”

_:Confirmation, affirmation!:._

“Good enough for me. Cortana?”

“Our best bet is probably WR102.” The hologram zoomed in on the star in question. “It’s one of the hottest stars in the galaxy, and there’s no one around for almost a thousand light years.”

“Then that’s our rally point. We can work out the specifics once we’re all there. Joyeuse!”

“Here!” She pushed her way through to stand across the holotable from her parents.

“Cortana’s going to take over on the _Nighthawk_ \- I want you to get all the Guardians at Genesis to the rally point. They’re small and quick, and their attenuation pulses might be able to knock out the power on the Flood ships. _Anything_ gives us an advantage. And give your mother what she needs for her recompile so she can survive outside of the Domain.”

“Consider it done.” She shimmered and vanished, departing the Domain.

“The rest of you, get the _Fleet_ there ASAP, and alert the Ecumene, have them move to Threat Alert Alpha.”

“Understood.” Most of the Spartans vanished as well.

John looked to Cortana. “Can you get us out of the Cryptum?”

“Easily. See you on the other side.” Then she was gone, too.

Finally, Locke took the chance to say, “What about the UNSC?”

“In what respect?”

“Do you need our help?”

“Personally I think the UNSC has enough to worry about without dispatching half the fleet to fight the Flood - not to mention we don't really know what level of technology they’re coming with. Everything except the _Infinity_ probably won’t be much more than cannon fodder. Come fight with us, or don’t. It’s up to HIGHCOM.”

He looked down. The Domain’s little avatar had jumped down from his shoulders and was now tugging at his fingers. _:Departing?:._

“Yeah.” He went to one knee in front of it. “We have to go defend ourselves from your bastard creators.”

_:Returning?:._

“Of course we’ll come back to see you. We’ve got a lot of information for you, too.”

 _:Happiness!:._ The avatar-child danced a little circle, clapping its hands, then hugged the Spartan, which he returned. _:Haste!:._

“We’ll go as fast as we can, I promise.”

He straightened, and then the world started swimming around them once again.

* * *

All the Spartans (plus Durandal) emerged from the Cryptum to find Cortana standing in front of them. She smiled in relief at the sight of them, and the Chief most of all. “So apparently we have three children now,” he said to her.

She snorted, and grinned. “Never thought I’d see the day when there was a _Spartan_ involved in an accidental baby acquisition.”

But then the Chief winced and curled both arms over his stomach, and she was there to support him a second later, already running a scan, amusement replaced by severe concern. “John, what’s-”

Open _horror_ flashed across her face at whatever her scan found, and Locke stiffened. 

The Chief intercepted her, or tried to. “I’m gonna be alright.”

“ _Your body is rotting away around you_,” she hissed, “That’s not _‘going to be alright’!_ ”

“ _WHAT?!_ ”

No one knew if they had been one of the ones who shouted because there had been so many voices on the COMs at once. Even Linda, who’d been the first to know he was wounded, was visibly _stunned_.

The _Nighthawk_ decloaked in front of them, landing swiftly, and a relatively small figure in Forerunner armor nearly punted open the boarding ramp a second later, running a scan of their own. Then they - he? - shouted, _“You have a lot of nerve being alive!”_

“If you’re quoting memes at me, it’s obviously not that bad, Ambi.”

_“Fuck you!”_

“Ambi” nearly picked the Chief up and hauled him into the ship. Cortana and the other Spartans followed close behind, ending up crowded in the _Nighthawk_ ’s small infirmary.

Small Constructors were already zipping around, removing MJOLNIR armor plates at a speed that nearly made the S-IVs envious; theirs came off quick, but not _this_ quick. Then the helmet came off.

The S-IIs were pale, yes - they above all rarely spent time out of armor, rarely got sun - but the Chief looked _ghastly_. 

His skin was almost chalk white - where it wasn't discolored red and purple and sickly yellow, mostly around his jawline. He looked like he’d also had a nosebleed recently - long enough for it to dry but not long enough to start flaking. They also took note of what looked like bruising on John’s cheeks; one of them seemed more like a friction burn, just deep enough for blood to appear on the surface. Now that his helmet was off, he was breathing quicker and deeper than _any_ Spartan should have.

“John?” said one of the Forerunner-MJOLNIR Spartans - with _Kelly_ ’s voice.

He looked up; one of his eyes had a burst blood vessel. “You might want to leave if you don't have a strong stomach,” he said, lifting a hand to make the Constructors pause before they could start peeling away the MJOLNIR techsuit and the undersuit beneath it. “Speaking from experience, ‘filling the vase’ isn’t pleasant.”

No one moved. “Ambi” yanked a diagnostic bed out of storage in one of the infirmary’s bulkheads, and lowered one of the sides so the Chief would be able to climb on.

John sighed and lowered his hand, letting the Constructors remove the techsuit. The undersuit was still on under it, but Locke could see that the skin discoloration extended down his neck and got worse - where the skin wasn't _gone_ , leaving bare muscle behind. 

And then the undersuit came off, and the thin clothing and bandages beneath it. No amount of discipline could have stopped the horrified _gasps_ that tore through the room.

His body _was_ rotting around him, blood vessels ruptured under his skin, the skin itself patchy where it wasn't already mostly gone. The decay seemed to have radiated outward from his abdomen; muscle and nerve lay bare and oozing from his neck to his elbows and knees, blood and pus and fluid welling up as he pulled back the gauze covering the damage. Some thick bands of muscle hung loose from the bone, barely attached. Several arteries were almost completely bare of skin and muscle; they could see every slow, agonizing beat of his heart. Some of his bones were exposed as well, the ribs and spinal nubs most of all, and in more than a few places on his abdomen, they glimpsed his internal organs, themselves bruised and decaying, through gaps where the muscle protecting them had already rotted away.

 _“ Dad!” _Joyeuse cried. Durandal said nothing, but his armor glowed with sharp distress. Cortana was silent as well, but she clutched one of his hands, the Spartan holding just as tight, equations and pulses of light _racing_ over her form.

“I’ll be alright, Joy.” The thickening rasp in his voice was at last explained; his vocal cords were starting to tear.

He let Ambi help him up onto the bed, and laid down with a sigh but stayed propped up on his elbows. _“You have a lot of nerve being alive,”_ the Forerunner hissed again.

“I’m the most _spiteful_ person in this galaxy,” the Spartan returned, “I _refuse_ _to die_ until things are better.” Then he turned to Osiris. “Where did you all come in from?”

“Sunaion,” Locke managed, strangled, “Sanghelios.”

“You still got people back there?”

“Affirmative.”

“Then we’ll drop you with them, and alert _Infinity_ that everything’s taken care of and you need extraction,” the Chief said as Ambi moved around him, “You should report to HIGHCOM, tell them what’s happening. We need to link up with the _Fleet_ ; the _Nighthawk_ doesn't have the equipment to treat this.” He gestured to his _everything_ with one half-decayed arm.

Ambi growled, “I _told_ the Builders we need a full-service medbay and containment and decontamination suite on every ship, but did they listen? _No!_ ” He descended into what must have been cursing, foul enough that it made the Chief’s eyebrows climb almost to his hairline.

“Did you know he knew those words?” Cortana asked.

“Nope.”

“All right, enough chatter,” the Forerunner nearly snapped, “Lie back, Commander. Putting you under now.”

The Chief lay back with another sigh, and Ambi pulled the lowered bed wall back up into place. A holopanel popped up, and he keyed something in. Then an energy field - soft violet, faintly transparent - extended from the bed walls and shimmered into place over the Spartan. Ambi monitored the display for a minute, then breathed a sigh of relief before turning to them. “Stay field,” he explained, “Suspended animation, and a lot kinder than your cryosleep. He _will_ be all right once we get him to the _Fleet_.”

One of the Forerunner-MJOLNIR Spartans asked - with _Fred_ ’s voice, “You’ll keep an eye on him?”

“Won’t even leave the room.”

He nodded and turned to Cortana. “Your Grace, you should probably jump into the _Nighthawk_ and do your recompile now so Joyeuse and Durandal can monitor you before we depart.”

“Fair enough,” the AI said, and vanished.

The Forerunner Spartan turned to the rest. “Come on. Let’s get ready to go.”

* * *

Exuberant pulled all the data and video on their fight in the Domain for them, and bade them all a cheerful goodbye, wishing them luck against the Flood. The Domain itself also conveyed a _:farewell for now, fortune for always:_ , before the Guardians left Genesis in one massive group. The _Nighthawk_ gave Slipspace a moment to settle, then departed right after them. “It’ll take us a few hours to reach Sanghelios, if you want to get some rest,” Cortana told Osiris, “If your debriefing is anything like ours was after the Battle of Zero-Four, it’s going to be awhile before you get another chance.”

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep after seeing _that_ ,” Buck grunted, “but I could use to lie down, that’s for damned sure.”

“Fair enough.” She directed them to another chamber, where the ship manifested surprisingly comfortable hard light bunks for them.

Buck sat down on one and pulled off his helmet. Locke caught a glimpse of his face - ashen, _badly_ shaken - before he buried his face in his hands. After a moment he muffled out, “ _Jesus_. I know there are people who say the UNSC doesn't make Spartans like it used to, but until now I never thought that was a _bad_ thing.”

“Agreed,” Vale said quietly, “I’m _amazed_ he’s _still_ combat-ready, given the state he’s in - and fighting through Genesis like that!”

“He must have been using the MJOLNIR as life support,” said Tanaka, “It looked like he was missing some _important_ bits of ‘ _equipment’_ , and I can’t imagine his digestive system was pulling too many nutrients in that state. Still, it’s almost enough to make me _believe_ there’s something to that old ONI propaganda - ‘Spartans never die.’”

* * *

The _Nighthawk_ only took six hours to reach Sanghelios. Despite Buck’s words, once he lay down he slept the whole way there, and the other three caught a few winks of shuteye as well. 

Linda came and woke them. “We’re in orbit now,” she told them, “ _Infinity_ ’s been alerted; she’ll be here to extract you in one local day.”

“You’re not coming?” Locke only half-asked as he sat up.

She shook her head. “Blue Team’s going with the Chief - we’ll be more useful there.”

The S-IV thought to argue for a second, then sighed. “The briefing never mentioned how - _tight_ you all are.”

“John’s wounded,” she answered, as if that explained everything. 

In a way it did. The S-IIs had trained together as children, so of course they were close, especially since there were only a few of them left. And officially Fred outranked him now, but the Chief was still Blue Leader - and, if the stories were true, the _de facto_ leader of _all_ the S-IIs. Having seen how badly hurt he was, the S-IIs would want to see him healed with their own eyes to make sure he was all right.

(Locke kind of felt the same. What did these Forerunners have that could fix all that damage? And what even _caused_ it?)

And, if the S-IIs returned to the UNSC, HIGHCOM might decide to hold them in reserve and defend something or someone from an attack that might not come ( _wouldn’t_ , if the Chief had his way), rather than deploying them to fight it head on the way they’d been trained to do.

Locke sighed again. “HIGHCOM isn't going to be happy.”

“If we can stop a Flood invasion before it starts, I think they can deal.”

She left, and by the time the S-IVs joined the others on the bridge, Cortana was starting their descent.

Tanaka whistled softly over TEAMCOM. “Check out our entry. We’ve gotta be going at least five, maybe six klicks a second, but we’re not feeling a damned thing. The gravity dampeners on this ship are incredible.”

The AI brought them in for a gentle landing about an hour’s walk from the Arbiter’s camp, where Palmer and Halsey were waiting. The Forerunners(?) and other aliens(!) made sure that they had plenty of supplies and ammo to carry them through until _Infinity_ arrived.

Then the _Nighthawk_ shimmered and disappeared so thoroughly that their armor couldn't pick up anything aside from the faintest hum from the ship’s engines, before that too was gone.

“Let’s go,” said Locke, “We’ve got work to do.”

* * *

_And time is not on our side,  
Another day won't stem the tide.  
And I can't wait 'til you decide…_

_As we face down the end,_   
_Rise and start again._   
_As we face down the end…_

-“Start Again”, Seven Lions feat. Fiora ( _Ophelia Volume 1_ )


	16. Thirteen: The Black Hero’s Rebirth

The _Nighthawk_ raced at top speed for WR102. The rest of the _Fleet_ had been _horrified_ at the state of their Commander, almost as horrified as Cortana herself. They had known that there would be degradation - the Composers had shown that so long ago, trying to return infected minds to uninfected bodies - but they hadn't known it had gotten so _bad_.

 _Perfect Storm_ , _Foreshadow_ , and their escorts had already arrived, Guardians flitting around them. The ships had been on standby but too late to reach Genesis, since John’s quantum COMlink had been disabled and the _Nighthawk_ had only arrived at the end of the battle. The _Storm_ ’s primary Infection Chamber was already prepared, and awaited the Spartan’s arrival. 

(And potentially _Spartans’_.)

Ambience-of-Night sat quietly in the _Nighthawk_ ’s infirmary, reviewing the data his ancilla was reading from the Commander’s diagnostic bed. Technically speaking, he could have arranged for the human to be reinfected and healed right now, but the lack of containment and decontamination facilities meant the corvette would have to be quarantined and scrubbed to prevent accidental infections for any non-Infected who came onboard.

Rtas ‘Vadum hadn't been exaggerating when he said, “One single Flood spore can destroy a species.” Even their own permutation could propagate dangerously quickly if they weren’t careful when spreading their infection; thousands of spores were always released into the air, which could be breathed in by anyone present, slowly infecting them as well. Passive wandering around unarmored wasn't _nearly_ as high-risk, but still. Nothing quite like the Human-Flood War had happened yet because they had spent literally a _thousand years_ hashing out the most stringent containment protocol in the galaxy, but even so they still had to be continuously vigilant.

His ancilla reported that the stay field was doing its work, keeping the Commander in suspended animation until they linked up with the rest of the _Fleet_.

It also reported that his body’s degradation was indeed as _ghastly_ as it looked, and that the MJOLNIR’s systems reported that the active combat on Genesis and everything leading up to it had done quite a bit of damage. Before it all, the Commander had estimated that he had three weeks before he absolutely _had_ to leave the UNSC. Now, Ambience would have given him three _days_.

The door to the infirmary opened with the quietest hiss, and Kelly stepped in. Not the Parallel Kelly - the one from the Origin, the Commander’s sister in all but blood. She looked in his direction briefly, then turned her gaze on the Commander. “How is he?”

“The same,” Ambience answered honestly, “which is the point. He’ll come out in the same state that he went in, no matter how much time passes.”

She nodded at that and approached the bed to stare down at the other Spartan through the stay field. “Can he hear us?”

“That I don't know.” He briefly consulted with his ancilla and the other Lifeworkers and members of the _Fleet_. “Consensus seems to be that it varies. Some are at least partially aware of things happening beyond the field, but others know nothing between going in and coming out.”

Another nod, but she stayed silent after that.

Ambience told his ancilla to alert him if anything happened or there were any interruptions in the power to the stay field, and let himself slip into a meditative state. There were no adherents to the Creed of the Mantle among the _Fleet_ , not anymore, but he still found meditating on its precepts - on _what it was meant to be_ , rather than _what it had been used for_ \- to be a comfort, calming in distressing times. He wasn't alone in that.

“I don't really know him anymore.”

He came out of his meditation and looked at Kelly, surprised that she had spoken. He remembered what it had been like for her Parallel self had finally joined up - for _all_ the S-IIs, really, including the Commander. It had taken them a long time to become “functional human beings”, as they put it, and there were still times they fell back on their training and clammed up, stayed silent rather than let others know what they were thinking or feeling, even with how intimately they were joined with the rest of the _Fleet_.

“It’s no fault of your own,” Ambience said softly, “It was less than the blink of an eye, but in the space of a tenth of a second, he endured a hundred thousand years away. In an entirely different _universe_ , no less. I’m not surprised he seems a stranger to you.”

“Not completely - he’s still _John_ \- but… Linda saw that he was injured before I did. I knew he was pulling away from us and the UNSC, but Fred saw that something wasn't right - that he was grieving Cortana - before I did. I don't understand how I missed so much.”

“It happens to all of us. We knew him for a hundred thousand years, but still we underestimated him. We were too close - couldn't see the forest for the trees. We knew the degradation was taking place; we have seen it before - a different cause, to be sure - but we knew. Yet he still hid how bad it was from _all_ of us, even Her Grace, Lady Cortana.”

Kelly looked back at him again. “He really married her?”

Her tone said that she wasn't asking why he’d married _Cortana_ of all people, just that they’d actually gotten married. “They did. It was quite the event. There were sword fights involved.”

He didn't need to see her face through her visor to know that her eyebrows had nearly reached her hairline. _“Sword fights?”_

“Indeed. They used the Saavaasi wedding style, which involves the prospective spouses fighting back to back to prove they can defend each other. I can pull up the video if you want to see.”

“ _Yes, please_.”

* * *

The diagnostic bed holding the Commander was taken straight from the _Nighthawk_ to the _Perfect Storm_ ’s Infection Chamber. Ambience walked alongside it, even when Moons-of-Evening-Star joined them with a few Lifeworker Huragoks. Her probes and their tentacles tapped over the stay field, then she said, ‘You’ve done well.’

He smiled at her, and followed as she took over the lead, both Blue Teams formed up around them. The rest of the _Fleet_ ’s Spartan Corps were scattered through the other ships - save for the _special transfers_ brought aboard by the _Mercy in Darkness_ , another stealth corvette and one of the dozen ships they’d built after following the Commander back to his home universe. 

No one said it, but they were all _quite eager_ to see how he reacted to this particular - _unexpected development_. Some had even taken bets.

Evening-Star and Ambience connected the bed to the _Storm_ ’s network, and made sure everything was prepared before deactivating the stay field. The Commander came awake at once, blinking in the light; this infirmary was more brightly lit than the soft blue glow of the _Nighthawk_ ’s.

Cortana appeared on the holopanel next to the bed, and he tilted his head up to smile softly at her, which she returned.

Then Evening-Star leaned over him. “You’re a dumbass.” There was no real heat to it.

“So you’ve said, many times.”

It was then that the strange Flood split personality spoke for the first time in what seemed like thousands of years - and aloud, too, through the infirmary’s speakers so that the Commander could hear it. **“ _There_ you are. We were beginning to wonder.”**

Ambience looked up in time to see the Commander’s team jolt and lift their weapons at the sound of the Flood-distorted voice so very like the Commander’s own. But the Spartan himself just smiled slightly - not quite a smirk, but not a pure smile either. “You can’t get rid of me _that_ easily. Was there ever any doubt I’d be back?”

**“Perhaps not. But you certainly took your sweet time about it.”**

“Aw, did you _miss_ me?”

**_“Absolutely not.”_ **

The Commander’s smile blossomed into a full crinkle-eyed grin at that, and Cortana grinned as well. “I missed you too, you bastard.”

The Flood hissed and withdrew, but Ambi could tell it was pleased in its own way. It had never had anyone _miss it_ before, let alone say as much aloud, even jokingly.

Evening-Star eyed the other Spartans, then said, “If you’re going to be here for this, we’re going to need to decontaminate your armor afterwards.”

“Just give them a whole new set,” Cortana suggested, folding her arms.

John grunted in agreement, stretching with a thoroughly unpleasant squelch. “I know Linda at least liked the look of the M38.”

“How much better is that than this?” Fred asked, gesturing to his own MJOLNIR. 

Ambience consulted the full Builder team and Doctor Halsey, then said, “Your current armor set is equivalent to an M3.”

“ _Sold_.”

“Once we’re done with this, we’ll get you outfitted,” said Evening-Star, “We have an armor station here, if you want the Constructors to start removing yours now.”

The Spartans set their weapons down in the racks the _Storm_ opened for them, then let the Constructors start detaching plates. But all of them kept their eyes on John as Ambience and Evening-Star gave him several nutrient injections, mostly vitamins and proteins. The Flood infection would heal him, but it still needed something to build off of.

Then Ambience collected one of their many supercell injections and said, “Lady Cortana, containment level alpha, please.”

“You got it.” The atmospheric filters kicked on, and the Lifeworker knew that once they went through the decontamination exit procedure, then everything hard light in the room (which was everything not metal, and even some that was) would vanish, and the infirmary would be flash-heated to more than five hundred degrees Celsius kill off any remaining Flood supercells.

When Ambi approached with the injection, John held out his arm, and the Forerunner shuddered a little at the sight of his half-rotted flesh. As he’d said before, the Commander had a lot of nerve being alive in that state.

The needle slid in smooth and easy, and the supercells drained into his body. They started spreading through him at once, working the Change into his flesh once more. They could _see_ the infection as it moved, veins turning dark green as it passed, muscles quivering and flexing, looking like there was something _alive_ moving under the surface. But it also healed him; muscles and veins and nerves knitted back together before their very eyes, before being covered by new skin, smooth and unmarked.

He was infected again - and also whole. He sighed in relief, the briefest cloud of Flood spores escaping him, and rolled his shoulders. Then he sat up.

 _“You shouldn't have left it so long, Dad,”_ Joyeuse said over the COM, _“You should have called for the Fleet sooner - you know we would have come in a heartbeat.”_

“I should have called for a _Forerunner armada_ , after what the Ur-Didact did to Earth?”

_“You know what I mean! You’ve been running around on missions for months; we could have met you somewhere to let you shoot up.”_

“Don’t you compare this to drugs; this is so much worse than drugs. And I didn't want ONI to get a hold of the Flood DNA, because you _know_ they’d try to weaponize that shit; you know what happened on the _Mona Lisa_ , probably better than I do now.”

John stopped, and _stared_. Ambi sensed the whole Spartan Corps – and indeed the entire Fleet – grinning at him. Then he said, “ _What._ The _shitting fuck_.”

‘I _told_ you! Pay up, bitches!’

“I am gonna have a _fucking stroke_ , what the _hell_. Where are you all?! Get in here!”

“Don’t go running around with your dick out, John,” Cortana laughed, “They’ll be here in a second.”

They'd actually been waiting right outside. It took only a minute to go through the airlock and decon, and the Spartans entered, still grinning.

 _“Samuel-034, I saw you die with my own two eyes,”_ John barked, _“How the_ fuck _are you here?”_

The Spartan in question laughed quietly, even as Kelly’s head whipped back and forth between the two different versions of him. “We don’t really have an answer for that,” he said, helmet turning transparent so his sister could see his face, could know he was real, “One second, we _were_ dead. I don't know how to describe it to someone who hasn't experienced it, but then we all heard your Mysterious Voices™. They said you still needed us - and then we woke up here, on your _Fleet_.”

The Commander pushed the heels of his palms into his eyes and said, fiercely, “ _What_ the _fuck_.”

“ _Sam?_ ” Kelly said shakily.

He turned to her. “Hey, Kelly. Long time, no see.” He swiped a Spartan smile across his faceplate, even though his actual face was still visible. 

Dispensing with even the S-IIs’ infamous reserve, she threw herself at him and pulled him into such a fierce hug that their armor audibly creaked and groaned. “I’ve missed you, brother,” she whispered.

Another Spartan emerged from the knot of formerly-deceased Origin Spartan-IIs and approached, his own helm also going transparent.

“ _Kurt!_ ” Fred cried, already stepping forward to embrace their once-dead brother, a gesture the other man returned. Even Linda abandoned her own reserve and stepped in to circulate with the other S-IIs.

And there were _many_ \- even those who’d died during the augmentation procedures were here, whole and combat-ready, with no real explanation for how they’d died - sometimes, like Sam, before their siblings’ very eyes - and then woken up on the _Fleet_.

“Even we freaked out when they started showing up,” Ambience told the Commander as he hopped down from the diagnostic bed and headed for the armor station, “After the first few, we knew roughly when they’d be coming, and from and to where. The science team took every reading they possibly could, got some weird signals, but still.”

“No explanation.”

“Not a one. Well, aside from divine intervention.”

John’s expression went complicated. “Why does this always happen?”

Ambience felt the same. If there was a god - or God, or gods - _why_? Why did so many horrible things happen? Why the deaths, why the wars, why all the anger and hate and _pain_ \- why the _Flood_? Why only _now_ was there intervention - and why only _these people_? It’s not that they weren't grateful - they _were;_ they knew how much his shield-siblings meant to the Commander - but what made _them_ different from everyone else who’d been lost, and not just in the Human-Covenant War? Was there simply not enough power or not enough room to maneuver and so they had to choose who would be saved, and chosen the Spartans?

There were no answers.

The Spartan stepped up onto the platform, and Cortana started it running. Segments of the floor around his feet folded away, and what looked like liquid tar flowed up and out of a reservoir there. After a second the fluid reached out and started to climb him. It rolled over his skin, rippling, covering the bottoms of his feet as well when he lifted them one at a time. When it was complete, covering the Gravemind up to his jaw, it _changed_ \- and became the techsuit for the armor, connecting to all of his UNSC-issued cybernetic implants and starting to alter them on a subatomic level to the more advanced _Last Fleet_ -issue.

What looked like a metal pod emerged from the floor. Lights flickered on the pod, and it split into segments, which flew up and assembled themselves around the Spartan, fitting back together without flaw and connecting to the techsuit, booting up. In under two minutes, the M38 combat skin had assembled itself around him and adjusted its configuration to mimic the MJOLNIR Mark VI as much as possible, the plates gleaming in the light.

The Origin Kelly let the Constructors finish stripping off her armor and paused for only a moment before stepping forward, a hand outstretched.

John met her gaze. “You know there’s no coming back from this.”

“I told you before. You know what they wrote in my file.”

_Though mission-oriented and competitive, several Spartan-II trainers suspected Kelly-087 harbored no overt loyalty to the UNSC, and was only prevented from leaving the program due to strong bonds with her companions in Blue Team._

John let out a soft huff, gentle with affection. Then he too extended a hand, armor retracting and techsuit pulling back. His veins darkened again as they gripped one another’s forearms, fingers turning to Flood talons, which he sank into the soft flesh of her inner arm.

She shivered as the infection rippled through her as it had through her brother, but it left her otherwise unchanged. She blinked for a moment as John released her, then nodded and stepped up onto the armor station.

Fred and Linda looked at each other. Then, when the last of their armor came off, they too stepped forward, hands outstretched.

* * *

_Light it up, light it up, now I'm burning,_   
_Feel the rush, feel the rush of adrenaline,_   
_We are young, we are strong, we will rise,_   
_'Cause I'm back, back, back from the dead tonight!_   
_To the floor, to the floor, hit the red line,_   
_Flying high, flying high at the speed of light,_   
_Full of love, full of light, full of fight,_   
_'Cause I'm back, back, back from the dead tonight!_   
_Back, back, back from the dead tonight!_

-"Back From the Dead", Skillet ( _Unleashed_ )

* * *

Outtake from this chapter, talking about the _Enterprise_ :

“ _WHY_ did you build a ship this large?!”

“You and Mom are like 98% of our collective impulse control-”

“Bold of you to assume your mother is included in that; she told me to blow up several ships and a Halo ring. _Twice_.”

“-and you were gone, and your Flood alternate self was kind of egging us on, so… we built a ship! Several ships. Not all this big, though.”


	17. Fourteen: Prelude to Ruination

Tom Lasky had been fifteen when the Covenant had attacked Circinius IV. He'd seen the space elevator shot down, he'd seen the Corbulo Military Academy wiped off the map, he'd seen his best friend (almost girlfriend) die in front of him.

He'd also met the Master Chief. Even then, the Spartan had seemed larger than life - older, experienced, the kind of soldier every Marine aspired to be.

It wasn't until just recently that he learned that the Chief was actually six months _younger_ than him - and from the Chief's own _sister_ at that, who'd believed him dead for forty years and then ended up meeting him onboard the _Infinity_.

(He'd had Roland verify her claim, of course. He wasn't about to take risks with the life of the _Master Chief_ himself.)

(It was true.)

It was hard to say exactly what Davis thought about her brother being kidnapped by ONI and shaped into a super soldier straight out of legend. She kept her innermost thoughts well-concealed on the subject, and even when he had been onboard, she had made no attempt to actively seek him out, only watched from afar as he interacted with Blue Team for mission prep.

It was even harder to say what she thought of him not coming back with Osiris. Tom knew that HIGHCOM would never tell her exactly what had happened on this Forerunner planet "Genesis", and he'd felt guilty about it - and a little angry and frustrated too. He still remembered what it had been like, hearing that his own brother was dead but not how he'd died or who he'd even been fighting. So he'd quietly sneaked her into the briefing room under the guise of medical attention for Osiris when they came aboard. Palmer and the Spartans themselves hadn't said anything, so he assumed that they didn't _disapprove_ , at least.

Lasky had submitted their briefing on Meridian with the officers as well, but HIGHCOM was taking the opportunity to really review it with the Spartans now before they got into the events of Genesis. Just like he had, he saw the officers jolt in surprise when the Chief threw the thing - the _star road_ , Halsey had called it - into the air, and it exploded outward into a writhing mass of strange metal. Despite there being no visible means of control, it clearly followed the Chief's directions and, same as it had the last time he'd seen the recording, started arching up, carving a path to the surface for itself and the Guardian.

Admiral Osman paused the helmetcam recordings and zoomed in on one, rewinding and replaying. The star road whipped through a magma stream, sending a spray of red hot molten rock through the chamber, but the thing itself was utterly untouched. "Not even warm, I'd bet my entire budget on it," said Osman, "We don't have _anything_ like that, not even in development."

Which was a hell of a thing to admit to, if she was actually being honest. Lasky wasn't sure, but he'd give her the benefit of the doubt for now.

"Doctor Halsey called it a 'star road'," said Locke, "Said it was 'Precursor' rather than 'Forerunner', if that's significant."

Osman pursed her lips. It seemed like once again Halsey had been getting into things she shouldn't have. Regardless, the head of ONI pressed on. "It's known - in certain circles - that the Precursors were the predecessors of the Forerunners, hence the name, and that their technology was destroyed by the Halo Array - or _supposedly_ destroyed."

"So where did _this_ come from?" Hood finished her thought, then added, "And this - AI, you said?"

He played back the audio. _"Dad, I can't stall the launch much longer!"_

"Unknown, sir," said Locke, "We saw her later, and the male one who handled Meridian Station, but we don't know if they're _actually_ AIs or-" He hesitated, then forged on, "Or people or Forerunner ancillae."

"That's an interesting theory, Spartan Locke," said Osman, leaning in, "What makes you think they might be ancillae?"

"That will come later on, Admiral, during and after the fight on Genesis."

"Black Box, make a note."

" _Already done,"_ said the AI.

They kept moving, saw the star road form its flat spiral and disrupt the Promethean network, then block the full force of the Guardian as it launched, following it into Slipspace with that odd purple fringe of light. It was unlike any other Slipspace transition he'd ever seen, and he'd seen quite a few.

It was the Master Chief they were most interested in, so they largely glossed over what had happened on Sanghelios. Still, Tom was pleased to see that the Spartans had acquitted themselves well amongst the Sangheili - and that his own decision to trust Jul had been well-founded. He'd _agonized_ over it before he'd made the call, but Osiris had needed a guide on the ground - one Arbiter could afford to lose. Still, he was glad Jul _hadn't_ died and, even better, seemed to have reconciled with the Arbiter, at least a little.

Then… the planet Genesis. The star road, like rolling thunder in the distance. The Monitor the Chief had Cortana direct to Osiris.

The Didact.

Several officers on the call actually shot to their feet at that, their faces white. It had been over a year since New Phoenix, but they had all seen the reports, heard the calls over the COMs - _"MAC defenses ineffective against enemy vessel, it's still approaching!"_ Some of them had even seen what was left of New Phoenix after the Didact was done with it.

Osiris fought their way through the Prometheans and the Covenant, who were fighting amongst themselves as well.

And Cortana came over the COM, provided intel and support, such as it was. Tom felt briefly guilty that he'd condemned her so fast - especially given how _attached_ the Chief was to her - but he reassured himself that he'd been acting on what intelligence he'd had at the time. Nothing ill had come of it, and now he knew better. They all did.

When they reached Osiris linking up with Blue Team and fighting for their lives, Osman again paused the playback, rewound, and replayed, humming.

"Something on your mind, Admiral?" Hood asked.

"I've noticed it a few times, on other mission recordings since his return, but this is probably the most outstanding example I've seen of the Master Chief responding to a threat _before_ it's presented itself," she said, playing with the footage, "Here. He looks up at the wall - but the wall itself doesn't even start to flake away until a full three seconds later, and the Crawler doesn't appear until three seconds after _that_ , at which point his first bullet kills it. He fired to intercept before it had even appeared - almost like he knew _exactly_ where it was going to be."

The other officers murmured amongst themselves at that. "What exactly are you suggesting, Admiral?" Hood stated more than asked, "That the _Master Chief_ is _working with the enemy_?"

"I think it's reasonably safe to say that that's not the case," Osman answered, "Only… perhaps he wasn't _entirely_ honest when he told us what the Librarian did to him on Requiem."

Locke shifted at that, his expression odd. "Admiral, a bit further on, when the Didact and the Warden were sending in Prometheans as we were making our way to them, the Chief was able to mark the portal locations before they had even begun to form."

There was silence after that. Then General Hogan leaned forward. "All right, since no one else seems willing to ask, I will. _Did this Librarian give the Master Chief the ability to see the future?_ "

"Black Box?" Osman asked.

The AI was silent for a long moment. Then he said, _"As…_ unusual _as that explanation may seem to be, it actually is the most plausible option. Although it doesn't seem to extend very far in advance; I've taken the liberty of reviewing all of his helmetcam footage since he was augmented by the Librarian on Requiem, and it seems like it's roughly a three-to-five-second window."_

"Not very useful," said General Strauss.

" _Useful enough for him; it's well within his response time."_

The human inclined his head at that. "I was more referring to ' _not very useful for us_'. But there's not much we can do about it now, so let's set that aside for the moment and continue."

No one but Osiris reacted when they heard the Chief was wounded. Tom examined the Spartans' faces, noting the reaction; Buck had gone chalk white, and both Vale and Tanaka looked a little sick themselves. Even Locke was unsettled, which alarmed the officer. Of the four of them, he was the hardest to shake; however wounded the Chief was, it had rattled him badly.

Still, they said nothing, and let the recording continue.

When they heard the Chief's plan, Hood paused the recording and eyed them. "I take it by the fact that you're here that you succeeded."

"Yes, sir."

"Then I'll reserve judgement."

The playback resumed - until the Domain started talking to them. Well, "talking".

"Something happened, Spartan Buck?"

" _Yeah_ , something happened," the man grunted, "It - I don't really know how to describe it. This _Domain_ thing, it somehow _put its thoughts_ _inside our heads_. It agreed with what the Chief said, that it didn't like the Didact and would have thrown him out if it could, and just after-" He gestured, and the playback resumed briefly, long enough for the Chief to give the order to advance. "Right then, when he told it to protect Cortana, it basically said, 'I hear and obey.'"

"It knows him," said Osman.

"Seems that way."

"One question after another," Hood murmured, and Osman made a noise of agreement. "Resume."

They were mostly quiet through the rest of the recording - until the strangers arrived. " _Spartans_?" Hogan said in disbelief, "Where did these _Spartans_ come from?"

"The resemblance is unmistakable, but that armor _definitely_ isn't ours," said Osman.

"Are they actually Spartans, though?" Strauss asked, "Or did the armor just take that shape?" Still, he seemed as stunned as the others were.

"And there's those AIs again," said General Dellert, "Still calling the Chief _Dad_. 'Joyeuse and Durandal'."

"And we have a name for that ship," Hood finished, pulling up an image from the _Infinity_ 's external cameras of the strange 'tail-less manta ray' ship that had collected Blue Team from _Argent Moon_ , "How much you wanna bet that _this_ is the ' _Nighthawk_ '?"

"I'm not taking that bet."

The review continued, with mostly inaudible murmurs from the officers. Though at one point, Tom distinctly heard Osman say, " _God_ , those _shields_. What I wouldn't give…"

He had to agree with her there. The newcomers' shields never drained _once_ throughout the entire firefight; they barely seemed to need to take cover, though they still did it.

Then the Spartans were captured, and the visuals switched over to what Genesis's Monitor had pulled from the Domain for them. It rendered as a three-dimensional hologram in full color - such as it was.

The ruins didn't last, and Lasky couldn't help but shudder at what the Chief changed them into.

"A _Flood Hive_?" Hogan half-asked, "He could have made this _Domain_ into _any_ battlefield or terrain in _existence_ , and he chose a _Flood Hive_?"

"Not just _any_ Flood Hive," Hood said quietly, "That's _High Charity_."

Everyone went _dead silent_ when the Primordial appeared on the battlefield. With Exuberant's rendering, he _saw_ the Chief take its shape, but the sight of that _thing_ still sent visceral terror racing through Tom's body like a flash flood, and he was willing to bet his entire military pension that _everyone else_ felt the same - especially when the Chief _laughed_ with its voice.

Osiris hadn't actually "seen" it happening, but now they did. Both Buck and Tanaka whooped when the Chief and Cortana took down the Didact, and Hogan and Strauss laughed. Even Osman smiled in satisfaction.

Then-

" **We are _coming! We are coming for you!_ And this time there will be no mercy - only _judgement!_ "**

Silence.

There was silence as the last of the Warden disappeared. There was silence as the Chief worked out the beginnings of a plan to stop the invasion. There was silence as the additional "Spartans" departed the Domain to prepare to fight. There was silence when the Chief bade farewell to the Domain and promised to return.

When the recording prepared to switch back to the Spartans' helmetcams, everything exploded at once. Well, not _exploded_ exactly; Hood stopped the recording and buried his face in his hands. Osman sat back in her chair to stare at the ceiling, taking shuddering breaths with a white-knuckled grip on the arms of her chair. Both Strauss and Dellert rested their elbows on the table and folded their hands - tight enough that their knuckles went white. And Hogan actually got up and walked out of view of the camera.

There were several long minutes of silence. Finally, Osman sat up, composed herself, and said, "I'll get word to my teams on the Ark, see if we can get some kind of deep-space sensor array online to verify this. If it _is_ true… I say we give the Chief everything we've got that might be of use and let him handle the defense. Based on just what the _Nighthawk_ has, the only thing _we_ have that could come close is the _Infinity_."

Hood composed himself as well and said softly, "Agreed. What other option do we _really_ have? But let's finish up here first. Black Box, if you would please be so kind as to retrieve General Hogan."

" _Certainly, sir."_

After a moment, the man returned, and the recording resumed.

Tom saw Davis react for the first time when she saw the state her brother had been in when the MJOLNIR came off. His own reaction was much the same in terms of how _horrified_ he was, and he saw her face go _white_ , eyes wide and starting to tear up, hands coming up to cover her mouth. Still, neither of them threw up like Dellert and Hogan did, darting for trash cans out of view.

And the Chief had been _fighting_ like that?!

Palmer cursed, clearly audible to all of them, but no one called her out on it.

Whoever these aliens were, though, they seemed to be friends of the Chief and Cortana, and saw to the Spartan as much as they could, then brought Osiris back to Sanghelios with plenty of supplies for them to get home.

" _Fuck_ ," Davis said fiercely when the recording ended. After a moment, she added, "And _fuck it._ If they actually manage to get him healed again, declare them Gods of Medicine, 'cause that's beyond our skill."

" _Amen_ ," said Osman, "BB, Ark, ASAP."

" _Yes, ma'am."_

Hood leaned forward. "Captain Lasky."

Tom stepped forward at attention. "Sir."

"You heard the Master Chief. ONI will work on intel, but if the Flood really _is_ coming… _Eternity_ still won't be complete for a number of months yet, so are you willing to take _Infinity_ out to link up with the Chief and fight?"

There was no hesitation. If the Chief could kill the Didact in that state, he could do anything – even stop a Flood armada. "Yes sir."

* * *

ONI's Prowler arrived at the Ark just in time to see a Forerunner frigate - _Until Justice Prevails_ \- steal Installation Zero-Nine from the Foundry.

"Well, I guess we know where they're getting their Halo ring."


	18. Fifteen: I Shall Be The One To Judge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter is mostly a resounding Fuck You to Karen Traviss; read accordingly.

_Don't react._

Catherine Halsey let her eyes drift open slowly. Someone had sent a message to her neural lace - not for the first time, but this was unsigned - _entirely_ unsigned, no identifiers at all, something she hadn't thought possible.

But she kept her face impassive, wary of the cameras on her at all hours now. It had been a mistake to continue contact with Jul, she acknowledged, but the pursuit of knowledge was one of her most powerful impulses. She had always been weak to it, and he had dangled the perfect bait: knowledge of the Librarian. And she _had_ paid the price for it; her missing arm still had phantom aches and pains, and itches that could never again be scratched. And being locked in this cell with nothing to do...

But then a second message came, and only the strongest effort kept her face unreadable.

_Oly oly oxen free, Doctor._

A minute later, the door to her cell hissed open. It was Captain Lasky and a fireteam of Spartans - Majestic, if she recalled correctly, led by Spartan Thorne now. He was one of the most tolerable of the Spartan-IVs she had encountered so far, but she didn't know much about the rest of his squad beyond the fact that the previous squad leader - DeMarco? - and… the other one… had been juvenile and irritating. She was briefly surprised it wasn't Osiris, but then she remembered that they were _supposedly_ still debriefing on what had happened after the Guardian had taken them from Sunaion.

Lasky stepped forward. "Doctor Halsey," he said, "We have transfer orders for you."

She sighed and stood up. "And I don't suppose ONI has told you where I will be going? A shallow grave on a glassed planet perhaps?"

The man shifted, and so did Thorne; despite all that had happened, they were uncomfortable with the thought that they might be letting her go to her death. "Not as I understand it," Lasky answered, "There's a facility that they'd like you to take a look at. Might be nothing, but they don't know yet."

She hummed in acknowledgement and stepped out of her cell, the S-IVs forming up around her and the officer and escorting them through the _Infinity_ to one of her many cargo bays.

There was a Prowler waiting, the UNSC _Dusk_. It rested almost sinisterly on the deck in the space cleared for it, the promise of ONI's long reach in its every angle and line. But she felt no fear of it; her attention was on keeping her face impassive - and on the people at the base of the Prowler's boarding ramp.

They were wearing sets of sleek, dark-colored MJOLNIR armor, all of them geared for covert operations and infiltrations, but she still recognized each and every of them, standing at calm attention as they approached. "Thank you, Captain Lasky," said one, voice scrambled by armor components, "We can take it from here."

The man nodded, and he and the S-IVs stepped back, letting the other Spartans surround her. They saluted the officer, who returned the gesture, and then escorted the scientist onto the _Dusk_. The ramp closed behind them, and she felt the Prowler start to move under her feet as they kept walking. "So where are we _really_ going? John, Fred, Kelly, Linda."

"Somewhere safe, away from ONI," the Master Chief replied, and she could hear the faintest smile in his voice. They led her to the commanders' quarters and unlocked the door for her. "Get some rest, Doctor. We have a few days before we arrive at our destination."

She stepped in. The quarters were small but better than any cell. She looked back. " _Thank you_."

All of them inclined their heads and left her to it, the door hissing shut as they walked away. She took off her shoes and lay down on the bed. She fell asleep almost immediately, exhausted from all that had happened, from always keeping one eye open for who knew how long. She was safe at last; the S-IIs were watching over her.

She woke hours later, fiercely hungry among other things. She used the head and freshened herself a little, then stepped out into the hall.

There was no sign of the Spartans.

A second later, a flare of blue light made her look around sharply. An unfamiliar AI appeared on a holopedestal just outside the door - and yet somehow she looked _very_ familiar in a way not easily described. She was relatively tall but not overly so, slender without being delicate, and she wore alien armor and had her long hair pulled up into a simple ponytail.

"Good evening, Doctor," she said, and Halsey instantly placed her voice. This was the unknown AI that had been working with John on Meridian. "There's food and water in the mess hall if you're hungry. Dad and the others are on the flight deck."

"'Dad'?" the scientist repeated. She couldn't deny that she was very curious - why did this AI call the Master Chief her father?

"It's a long story," the AI shrugged, "He'll be happy to tell you, and I'm sure he can explain better than I can; I wasn't actually around for most of it. Come join us when you're ready."

She vanished, but the promise of an explanation from John was enough to mute any irritation she may have felt. Halsey stopped in the tiny mess hall and found a few unfamiliar pouches of _real_ food waiting in storage. Simple instructions written in several languages - all but two of them alien (UNSC Standard and Sangheili) - let her prepare it easily, even with only one hand. She ate quickly, trying to work out the linguistics of the other languages like the packaging was some kind of Rosetta Stone. She briefly considered pocketing it, but reasoned that it would be odd and that there would be others like it later. Then she went to the bridge.

Space was at a premium there. All four Spartans were still in armor at the monitoring stations, keeping careful watch of the readouts, but even though their helmets seemed to be off, they were clearly communicating with each other without words - without even _looking_ at each other; she could see the micro-reactions in their facial expressions and the way they moved. "Permission to come onto the bridge, Spartans?"

They turned to look at her as one, though John was the only one who spoke. "Permission granted, Doctor. You know you don't need to ask."

"Still, it's polite," the scientist replied, stepping in, "Especially since you've apparently gone through quite a bit of trouble to snatch me through ONI's fingers."

He inclined his head in acknowledgement but said, "Actually, this was probably our easiest operation yet."

"Amen," Kelly agreed.

Halsey inclined her head as well. That was fair; they hadn't had to actually hunt her down and fight their way through the halls of the _Infinity_ to get her out. But that begged the question… "How _did_ you get me out?"

"A masterful bit of hacking from Joyeuse here and her mother."

The AI in question reappeared on another holopedestal and smiled brightly at John. "It was easy enough," she said, "Just a matter of patience and creative system errors." She turned to Halsey. "We already knew where you were; we heard the broadcast about Fireteam Osiris killing Sali 'Nyon and figured they must have recovered you in the process. We just had to wait for Osman to send out electronic orders with an encryption key to another team. I faked a temporary disconnect so she and the local system thought it didn't go through. She generated a new key for the orders, even though the original one was still valid, and I redirected the old one and rewrote the orders attached to it. Mom's the one who shuffled transfer orders and got us the _Dusk_ , and here we are. She wanted to come, but the UNSC might have recognized her data patterns."

"'Mom'. Meaning - Cortana?"

Joyeuse beamed and nodded. "'I am Cortana,'" she quoted, "'of the same steel and temper as _Joyeuse and Durandal_.' Dura is my brother."

"It's a long story." John gestured to one of the stations, and she took a seat. For a moment, there were familiar readouts on the screen, but they soon vanished, replaced by a report.

A very _long_ report, covering from the beginning of everything up to the end of the Battle of the Domain and the revelation of the Flood. If it had come from anyone other than her Spartans, she wouldn't have believed a word of it, but it came from John, who didn't have a lying bone in his body - at least not to her and the other S-IIs, since it seemed he'd been deceiving ONI and the UNSC with every breath he took since his return.

It took even _her_ hours to finish it. Linda brought more food when she was about three-quarters of the way through, but otherwise the bridge was mostly still and silent, waiting. At last she sat back, and stared off into space for a moment, thinking. That explained so much, answered so many questions that had started spinning through her mind from the very _instant_ John had gone AWOL.

But there was still at least one question unanswered. Arguably the most important one now.

"But why, John? Why rescue me? Now you know better than _anyone_ what I've done. Mendez and Osman-"

"They should speak for themselves," he said quietly, "and _only_ themselves. Mendez _trained_ us, and if he had an objection to the program, he should have lodged it back in _2517_ , not _now_. He doesn't get to pretend he has the moral high ground. Same for Alban and Black Box. And Serin - someone else may have pinned those bars on her shoulders, but she would do well to remember that _you're_ the one who put her in a position to _receive_ them. Not to mention all the shady shit that _she's_ done for ONI since she washed out, like _Kilo-Five_. She's in no position to judge _anyone,_ let alone _you_.

"But answer me this, Doctor. The SPARTAN-II program - you had us all kidnapped, trained, augmented, armed and armored. How much did it cost?"

"A _lot_ ," she answered without hesitation, " _Billions_ of credits for the MJOLNIR materials and research _alone_ \- we could have built at least one _full-size destroyer_ for _each and every_ Spartan-II. And that's not including all the resources, the facilities, the equipment, the _time_ … I don't know that I can actually estimate the _full_ cost; I was more focused on actually doing the work."

" _Billions_ of credits," John repeated. He leaned on his fist. "Not to mention the intel you needed to screen all the candidates, the personnel you needed to raise us, train us, to do the actual augmentation surgeries, the additional research and manufacturing teams from ONI's Materials Group to help actually _design_ and _build_ the MJOLNIR armor itself… and everything it took to keep all those people _quiet_ about raising kids for _war_. Not to disparage your intelligence and skill, but all of _that_ isn't something a mere _rogue scientist_ could do on their own. Someone, _somewhere_ , was signing off on it - and why would you teach us to be loyal to ONI and the UNSC if they weren't the ones doing it? Who approved it, who funded it, who gave you _everything you needed_? And even all of _that_ doesn't even start into ONI trafficking war orphans as young as _four_ to be suicide squads for Ackerson's S-III Program - that they _also_ signed off on. Faster, cheaper - _expendable_."

He nearly spat the word, as if it left a bad taste in his mouth, then continued, "As for Serin, she's upset that… what? We didn't keep in contact with her after the augmentations? Never mind the fact that all of us were in the middle of a _war_ and barely had time to blink, let alone keep track of the rest of the program - and that we were told she was _dead_.

"Yes, that must be it. It's _our_ fault. It couldn't possibly be that someone very high up in ONI had a very _public_ falling out with the program administrator. It couldn't possibly be that the lead scientist in question was reassigned, confined, cut off from contact with _all_ her Spartans, information about her deeds _intentionally_ leaked to leave her shamed, her reputation in tatters, because she was too valuable and too _useful_ to kill _just_ yet.

"And it _definitely_ couldn't be that the _best revenge_ was intentionally isolating and _grooming_ some of her beloved Spartans to hate her, turning them against her. It couldn't possibly be that someone intentionally _tampered with Serin's records_ , made it seem like she refused to be rehabilitated with Alice and Douglas and Jerome and the rest, instead choosing to dedicate herself to ONI directly. It couldn't possibly be that someone _forged a message_ from her, saying there was no longer a place for us in her life and that she didn't want anything to do with us or the program.

"Yes, it must have been malice on our part, because none of that could possibly be the truth, could it. No one in ONI had that kind of _power_ or _motivation_ , now did they."

_In time all foul things come forth._

"If I have to disavow some of my Spartan siblings because Margaret _fucking_ Parangosky decided to be petty, I will be _very upset,"_ he said, voice soft and dangerous, "Graveminds are _greedy_ , and I want them _all_."

The flight deck of the Prowler was ominously silent.

John gave her a smile as sharp as a blade, eyes changing color right in front of her, going from clear sky blue to a dark and poisonous shade of green. "I might not necessarily _like_ what was done to me and the others, but it was _done_ , and it's _too late_ to go back now. Any attempts at restitution or suing the UNSC to its back teeth won't give us and our biological families back all the years we lost. But the people in ONI who approved it - who _recruited_ you, _including_ Parangosky - are trying to blame _everything_ on _you_ , and **_we're - not - having it._** " The growl of the Gravemind colored his voice before it returned to normal. "If everyone else decides they want to keep drinking that Kool-Aid, _fine_. That's _their_ problem, not mine.

"And now, it isn't yours either." He leaned back in the captain's chair, eyes fading back to blue. "As long as you are with the _Fleet_ , you can consider yourself beyond the reach of even ONI's long arm."

"What if they try something?" Fred asked quietly, a hint of worry in his voice.

"They won't. They're not _that_ stupid - or at least I certainly _hope_ they aren't. But only a blind fool would challenge a Flood Hive this size - especially _this_ Flood Hive - over _one person_ , and someone they don't even _like_ , at that. They already declared her KIA on Reach. Better to just pretend that _now,_ it's true."

* * *

_The pain, the rain is a blessing in disguise,_   
_The flood's coming and it's drowning all the lies,_   
_The pain, the rain is a blessing in disguise,_   
_The flood's coming and it's drowning all the lies!_

_I will face everything and rise!_   
_Never gonna quit until the day I die,_   
_Angels keep falling from the sky,_   
_Take the broken wings and learn to fly,_   
_I will face everything and rise!_

-"Face Everything and Rise", Papa Roach ( _F.E.A.R_ )


	19. Sixteen: Gone With The Darkness

The _Dusk_ dropped out of Slipspace five days after leaving _Infinity_ behind. They were in the Procyon system, glassed by the Covenant in 2549 - and they weren't alone.

A small fleet of alien ships was swarming near the system's main star, Procyon A; a _massive_ supercarrier and two comparatively tiny cruisers. But they were gathered around a UNSC ship - one she knew well. Almost as well as the man who caused it to be lost, because some of her Spartans had been lost with it.

The _Spirit of Fire_.

"You found her," she said, turning to John, "How?"

"It wasn't hard. At least, not for the _Fleet_." He gestured for Joyeuse to take them in, and she set them on an intercept course. "They received word years ago that a Shield World – Etran Harborage - had been destroyed by humans because of Flood out of containment. After this universe's Reaving finally ended, they went looking for her. Knowing where the Harborage and UNSC space were relative to each other, it was simple to plot the fastest course from one to the other and follow the line. They finally caught up with her three weeks ago."

Halsey turned back to the _Spirit_ , watching her get larger in the viewport. "Why didn't she come back right away? And how far out was she?"

"Her FTL drive was used to destroy the Shield World, induced a supernova in the internal star. No way back but the slow way, and she had about another sixty years before she reached the outermost edges of current human space."

After a moment of watching, Halsey said, "They're cleaning the ship?"

"There were some enemy Flood forms inside. Been dead for quite a while, but we're not taking any chances. Every inch of her is being scrubbed from bow to stern - we'd take her apart and clean every piece if we could do it without waking the crew. But with the Flood coming and the UNSC probably already on our tail, we don't have the luxury of that kind of time. We'll just have to hope it's enough, and monitor the situation closely."

"You say that like you think something will happen."

"Something _did_ happen. I'll have Joyeuse brief you on the full details later, but the short of it is ONI fucked up. _Again_. After the Battle of Zero-Four, the prison ship _Mona Lisa_ went to Threshold to acquire _Flood specimens_ for _experiments_ on the prisoners, no doubt looking for a way to control it, make it into something they could _use_. But containment was breached, a Proto-Gravemind formed, and the _Red Horse_ shot her down so the Flood couldn't escape. So we'll be watching _very_ closely, and it won't be the first time." He let out a soft laugh. "Let's just say that in the Parallel we made bank working with HIGHCOM and Section Zero."

The _Dusk_ glided into one of the _Spirit_ 's cargo bays and landed without so much as a shiver, and the Spartans prepared to depart. It was obvious that they were not wearing UNSC standard issue armor; their helmets shimmered back into view - they hadn't been _off_ but _transparent_ \- and the plates reconfigured themselves before her eyes to become slimmer and sleeker. Still clearly MJOLNIR, but unmistakably Forerunner as well.

"Joyeuse, go ahead and transmit yourself back to _Edge of Eternity_ ," John said as he packed up the extra food, "and tell everyone Doctor Halsey is secure. We'll be leaving as soon as the cleaning is done."

"You got it."

There was another Forerunner transport waiting for them in the bay, larger, more spacious, more comfortable than the _Dusk_. But her attention was caught by the ship beyond - larger, less sleek but still better than anything the UNSC had in its arsenal.

"What is that?"

John followed her gaze. "A gift, both for the UNSC and to make ONI a little less pissed we extracted you."

"Kidnapped," Kelly interjected.

" _Extracted,_ " John repeated, then turned back to the scientist. "You might know of it - that's _Audacity_."

 _The Librarian's personal ship._ Halsey looked back at it, eyes wide.

John hummed. "I know that look." His head tilted to one side, listening. Then he said, "Ten minutes, Doctor. Then we need to leave."

A second later she was inside, escorted by Kelly and Linda. She ran her hand over the bulkheads and control panels and wished more than anything that she had her equipment with her to study _Audacity_.

Kelly seemed to follow her train of thought. "John's got copies of all _Audacity_ 's data, Doctor. Not quite the same as studying her firsthand, but I'm absolutely certain there will be other things to occupy your time."

"'Absolutely certain'?" Halsey glanced back at her. "What makes you say that?"

Both Spartans actually chuckled quietly. "We saw the _Enterprise_ before we left," said Linda, "on our initial jump here. _Enterprise_ is _five thousand kilometers_ long, and no, that's not a mistake."

The scientist could count on one hand the number of times she'd been well and truly surprised. It seemed she had another one to add to the list. "Five _thousand_ -?!"

"Kilometers, yes," Kelly finished, "As far as we're aware, she's the largest ship ever built. Cortana's the overseer now, but even _she_ needs four archeon-class AIs to help her run it."

 _All the technology that went into building a ship like that…_ Even _Audacity_ was chump change compared to a ship that size, and since John had copies of the ship's data, there wasn't really much for her here. She ran her hand over the console one last time, then departed the ship.

John was helping aliens in Forerunner armor - one of them looked like an oversized praying mantis - load the last of the equipment on their transport, though they were leaving their original MJOLNIR behind for the UNSC, at least partially so they couldn't be accused of stealing it. They boarded soon after, and it seemed normal enough inside for an alien transport, larger and far smoother and more comfortable than anything the UNSC had. She didn't even realize they had started moving until she glanced through a port and saw the _Edge of Eternity_ growing as the _Spirit_ receded. "What about Jerome, Alice, and Douglas?"

"We woke them, told them what had happened and what was coming," the Chief answered, "They're sad to be leaving the _Spirit_ and her crew behind, but they're with us, too."

That was a relief. "How many of you are there?"

"A hundred and thirty-eight S-IIs, now, and more from other generations."

 _That_ made her stop. Seventy-five from this 'Parallel' plus seven from the 'Origin' did _not_ equal a hundred and thirty-eight. The scientist turned to look at John, who had an innocent look plastered on his faceplate. She glared at him, and he chuckled. Then he said, "We don't know how it happened. Even those who actually _experienced_ it don't know how it was done, but… the other Spartans. The ones we lost in this world - _all_ the ones we lost. When they died, they reported being… weightless. Bodiless. Like a sensory deprivation chamber in zero-gee. No sight, no touch, no sound, nothing at all - but even so, they heard voices. 'Your task is not done,' they said. 'Your commander still needs you.'

"And then they woke up on the _Fleet_ , in one of the emergency cryo chambers on the _Enterprise_. _Every. Last. One._ " He turned his head to look through the viewport at the approaching _Edge_ , then turned back to her. "We're hoping the same will be true of the others, when they pass."

"Who's left?"

"Serin, obviously, but also Maria, Cassandra, Fhajad, Musa, Naomi, Leon, Robert, August, Jai, Adriana, and Mike."

A complex bunch. Serin especially; given what she knew of John and how he reacted to his sister's attempt on her life, he was more upset than he let on, and he'd let on quite a lot. It might be enough to make him make her _wait_ to join up, if indeed she wanted to.

But now Halsey could see what John meant by "somewhere safe" and ONI not wanting to declare war on " _this_ Flood Hive". Even just a hundred and thirty-eight SPARTAN-IIs was essentially an army all on their own, and that didn't even begin to touch the rest of the unknowns in the _Last Fleet_ , their Flood-borne abilities, and their technology. And Cortana and Joyeuse and the other Forerunner ancillae as well; they had demonstrated that they could easily spoof even the UNSC's most secure systems.

He was right. She _was_ out of their reach.

And some last bit of tension - some last coil of fear of _they'll find me again they'll catch me and lock me away from everyone and everything that matters_ _they'll bury me in a black hole and let me drive myself mad in shadows and silence_ \- at last unwound.

"Speaking of family, that reminds me," John said, "Iridescence, put me through to the Twins."

"Which set?"

"You know damned well which set." The ancilla snickered but did as he asked.

" _What's up, boss?"_

"Stop putting in requests for a carrier named _Condiments_ , I'm not gonna tell you again." John waived for the ancilla to close the COM channel even as the Twins started laughing.

" _Condiments_?" Halsey repeated as the rest of Blue Team started snickering really quietly behind her.

"Somehow, they got _someone_ \- Joyeuse - to let them name some single ships _Ketchup_ , _Mustard_ , _Mayo_ , and _Barbeque Sauce,_ and I think we also have a _Tahini_ and an _Aioli_ floating around somewhere. This is what I mean when I say 'we're a madhouse, but we know what we're doing.'" He gestured to the transport around them. " _This_ is the _Barbeque Sauce_ in question."

"Mm," was all Halsey said.

John knew her well enough to recognize the response behind it. "Speaking from experience, a hundred thousand years does things to people, Doctor," he said, "They had to occupy themselves somehow. They already doubled the size of the _Fleet_ ; giving some dropships ridiculous names is hardly the worst thing they could have done."

* * *

 _Edge of Eternity_ , _Final Frontier_ , and _Ambient Wonder_ left for WR102 within the hour. Halsey didn't see them depart, or even know they'd entered Slipspace; she was too focused on observing absolutely _everything_ she could about the supercarrier.

More than anything, _Edge of Eternity_ was _massive_. She made _Infinity_ look like a toy, even though that was one of the largest and most advanced ships in the UNSC fleet and Halsey herself had had a hand in building her. The ship itself was more spacious, the halls more open, technology more streamlined. She wasn't the type to believe in any higher power, but _God_ , she wanted her equipment! Or at least a datapad to record her observations! And another hand to record _with_!

As if summoned, a green Huragok appeared before her, squeaking. She jerked back, startled, then heard a voice cursing in another tongue, clearly scolding.

There was a Forerunner coming down the hall toward her, three more Huragok right behind them. As the stranger approached, he switched to Standard. "Ah, Doctor Halsey," he said, "I apologize for this little one here; he is newly made and doesn't know yet that he shouldn't spring himself on people."

"Quite alright. But you know who I am - who are you?"

"Forgive me; I'm Ambience-of-Night, but please, call me Ambi. Most do." He turned to the Huragok. "This little one is now Drifts Away, and these are his parents, Intricate Adjustments, Never Sinks, and Floats Up." With the last, he pointed to her side, where another Huragok was poking at her missing arm with its tentacles, floating higher than the other three. "If you'd like to come with us to the infirmary, we can get you fixed up."

Maybe she _did_ believe in a higher power. Just a little bit. "I'd like that."

The infirmary was awe-inspiring as well, and once she was settled and had received nutrient injections, it only took the four Huragok fifteen minutes to rebuild her arm in its entirety. Ambience supervised and nodded in approval when they were done. He said something to them in another tongue, which made them all squeak in delight and pat his armor with their tentacles before drifting off in a knot. "Sorry about them. It's not actually often that they get a lot of intensive work, so they tend to be a little much when they _do_."

"It's all right. I work in a different field, but I do understand, at least a little."

Ambience tilted his head, listening to something she couldn't hear. Then he said, "The Commander - that is, the Master Chief - is on the bridge. We're approaching WR102, if you want to see."

She did, and Ambience got a Builder, one Silver-Moon-of-Fortitude, to escort her. They spent the whole trip discussing Forerunner engineering, which made the Spartans laugh softly when they entered the bridge. John just looked amused, like he'd expected nothing less. Then he waved her over.

The bridge was impressive, too, shaped like a somewhat flattened spheroid with consoles and holograms lining the walls. At the center of the room was obviously the command console, a ring of both upper and lower screens angled towards them with a hologram of their destination in between.

John gestured in a seemingly random direction. "The bridge walls project the view of what's around us," he explained, "When we drop out of Slipspace, you'll be able to see the _Fleet_ and all the allies who've come to help us."

"How much longer?"

Even as she finished asking, light bloomed on one wall. WR102 - they'd arrived. And before her…

Well, maybe she needed two hands to count her surprises after all.


	20. Seventeen: Steel Nation's Decree

Thel 'Vadam was tired. If anyone had asked, he would have denied it, projected an aura of unending strength, but in his hearts, he was _tired_. Tired of fighting, tired of politicking, tired of _everything_. Five human years he'd spent trying to keep Sanghelios - and _all_ Sangheili - from flying apart at the seams after the collapse of the Covenant. Even with the death of Sali 'Nyon and Jul's surrender, there seemed to be no end of bad news.

And now _this_.

"Arbiter! A Forerunner fleet has entered the system!"

He contained a weary sigh with a clench of his mandibles. "Have they tried to communicate with us? Made any demands?"

"Not yet, Honored One."

"Then we will reserve judgement until they do," he said, "but keep our weapons near. Have a rendering ready - I wish to see these vessels."

"By your word."

The signal officer left the room, and Thel took a moment to let his shoulders sag - though only for a moment. Then he finished pulling on his armor and headed out to the command post.

Many Sangheili were murmuring amongst themselves when he entered, looking at the visuals streaming in from one of their cruisers in orbit. The fleet was small, which he hadn't expected, but "small" was relative. The largest ship was easily twice the size of _Long Night of Solace_ , and it was escorted by what he assumed were two destroyers and two cruisers. They settled into an extremely high altitude orbit at what the humans would have called a "Lagrange Point".

Then - "Arbiter, we're being hailed."

"On screen."

A human appeared, wearing Forerunner armor. Thel didn't recognize him - until he opened his mouth. _"Arbiter,"_ said the Demon, _"Good to see you. Sorry about all the guns - we weren't one hundred percent sure what the situation was like on the ground, and thought it better to be prepared."_

"Spartan," he returned, pleased, "It is good to see you hale as well. The other Spartans were concerned; I gathered that you were gravely injured."

The Demon inclined his head. _"In a manner of speaking. But unfortunately this isn't purely a social call. We have intelligence for you - since personally I doubt the UNSC will get around to informing you - and supplies as well."_ He glanced at something - or some _one_ out of view. _"And a number of medics who can heal your people without shedding their blood and so dishonoring them, if that's still a thing."_

"We are working on it," said Thel, "but come, and be welcome. I am eager to hear what is so important it merits you coming personally."

The Demon's lips pulled up in a faintly bitter smile. _"If only it were good news,"_ he said, _"See you on the ground."_

* * *

The "Lifeworkers" moved quickly. By the time the Demon came down himself, word of them, their Huragok, and their seemingly miraculous healing abilities had spread beyond the keep; Thel wouldn't have bet against it reaching most of the planet by now. Still, they were treating the Swords of Sanghelios and their allies first, making obvious who had their favor. With his permission, they had launched more than a few transports to other combat zones as well, to treat the wounded.

Then the Demon arrived, and ripples spread through the hall. Though his armor was Forerunner now, it was still unmistakably one of the Spartans' "MJOLNIR" sets, and he was - of all things - _unarmed_.

Or, he _appeared to be_ unarmed. Thel had fought both against and beside many of his kindred, and knew well that they could turn absolutely _anything_ into an improvised weapon. It was a skill he'd envied once, and mastered himself through long practice.

There was a female with him, but she wore armor unlike anyone else's. Silver and glowing blue, with pulses of light - was that his _construct_? Locke had said she was involved with the Guardians…

Curiouser and curiouser.

And then the Demon greeted him in proper Sangheili fashion, but as a commander greeting another of equal rank while still showing respect and deference. The Arbiter returned the gesture, then invited him inside to a briefing chamber, where some of his most trusted commanders waited. "Speak, Spartan. Tell us what you have brought."

The Demon sighed. "In order to provide a full explanation of what's coming, I'll have to start at the beginning, but you have my word I'll do my best to condense and omit everything that's not relevant."

And then he told them about his own Great Journey. His construct had brought visuals as well, and put them on screen, and the Demon explained his thoughts, provided live translations in flawless Sangheili.

When they reached his Journey with the Holy One known as the Librarian and arrived in Path Kethona, observed the star roads, he reached into one of his armor's pockets, then held out his hand. Thel extended his own.

The Demon dropped the fragment of star road into his hand.

The fragment was as it had been then, a splinter - relatively speaking - of iridescent, crystalline metal roughly the size and shape of a human finger. He held it up and watched the light glint off it, then, with a nod of permission from the Demon, passed it on so that his other commanders could handle it as well.

Then came the horrible truth of the Flood's origins.

No amount of discipline could have stopped the whispers that raced through the chamber.

Thel himself was silent, not because he didn't know what to say but because there was _too much_ to say. More than a little bit of him wanted to call the Demon a liar, to say that the Holy Ones weren't capable of such a thing, but another part reminded him of the Halos and their terrible purpose. If the Forerunners could bring themselves to wipe out all life in an entire galaxy, then working to eradicate a single species was a small thing in comparison, no matter how advanced they were. Another part of him wanted to weep, yet another to rage; the Forerunners had been like gods to him once, but it seemed that all they had actually left for the galaxy was destruction and death, in one form or another.

Then the Demon showed them the Forerunner-Flood War - severely abbreviated, only a few of the biggest battles - Maethrillian, the Greater Ark - but Thel could see the shadows of the _horror_ that still lingered in the Demon's eyes, dark with recollection. The memory of that war would haunt the Spartan for the rest of his days, and the Sangheili mourned for him, knew that he would never fully be at peace; the blade had cut too deep. Still, the presence of his construct was a comfort to the other warrior, and Thel was glad of it.

After was the Firing of the Array, the Great Cataclysm, the Reseeding… and then the Forerunners' own Great Journey.

"There is much that came after," said the Demon, "that we will provide for you to look at when you have the time, but for now it is irrelevant. Just know that the galaxy recovered, obviously, but in other places as well as here. A Third Ecumene was founded with a number of other species, and endured for sixty thousand years before collapsing at about the same time as the Human-Covenant War. There was… a _lot_ going on.

"But this, I think you will find most enlightening. The other you certainly did. Mendicant Bias, the ancilla that was perverted by the logic plague, was not wholly contained on the Lesser Ark. A fragment escaped… and found its way to the _Anodyne Spirit_ , the Forerunner Dreadnought of _High Charity_. He was the Covenant's Oracle there, and after the Battle of Installation Zero-Zero, he provided this to us."

And then they heard.

 _FOR EONS I HAVE WATCHED, LISTENED TO YOU MISINTERPRET. THIS IS NOT_ RECLAMATION _. THIS IS_ RECLAIMER _. AND THOSE IT REPRESENTS ARE MY MAKERS._

" _The Forerunners, some were left behind."_

" _What should we believe?"_

" _We must take no chances with these…_ Reclaimers _. They must be expunged. Before anyone else knows of their existence."_

" _If the Oracle speaks the truth, then all we believe is a lie. If the masses knew this, they would revolt. And I will not let that come to pass."_

The Demon's gaze was heavy and cold on the image of Truth. "Whether it was for the good of the Covenant or for himself, we cannot say," he told them, "He was taken by the enemy Flood, and so was lost to us. But, given everything that happened _after_ , near the end? We know what _we_ believe. We leave it up to you to decide what _you_ believe.

"But the tale does not end there."

He showed them, in brief, the foundation of the Fourth Ecumene… and then the vision that called him and his people home. The fight against the Didact, twisted by the Flood, the flight to Genesis, the Battle of the Domain.

" **We are _coming! We are coming for you!_ And this time there will be no mercy - only _judgment!_ "**

"The Flood armada is getting ready to pass the Greater Ark, since rebuilt by the _Fleet_ ," said the Demon, "Once it is out of range, we mean to jump out to it and attack it, _destroy_ it, before it has a chance to reach the galaxy and disappear between stars. We don't expect you to come fight with us; in fact, I daresay that you _shouldn't_. You have enough fighting going on _here_ without adding this to it. But… There are so many variables. _Anything_ could happen. If it got past us - or _worse_ \- we didn't want the first you heard of it to be an enemy armada arriving in orbit."


	21. Eighteen: A Genius Scientist's Lineage

The _Infinity_ was fuller than she'd ever been under Tom's command. He hadn't realized that the UNSC had so many Spartans - though some of them were _obviously_ green, just out of the augmentations and the Spartan equivalent of boot camp. Still, more were experienced S-IVs, and even all the surviving S-IIs and S-IIIs, along with their teams. Even Cassandra-075, who wasn't fit for duty, had been brought onboard and installed in the medbay under Davis's watchful eye. They were just waiting on one more before they departed…

Speak of the devil. A small Prowler decloaked alongside the _Infinity_. Lasky signaled Roland to allow them to dock before the AI even asked, and after a moment, the narrow, almost jet-like ship glided in and settled quietly on the deck. The boarding ramp lowered, and a trio of Spartan-IIIs emerged, along with a small, dark-haired woman, her eyes flitting through the bay before coming back to rest on him. "Captain Lasky," she said.

"Inspector Lopis," he replied, saluting her and her team respectfully, "Welcome aboard."

"Thank you for taking the time to receive us," she said, descending to the deck with her team, all of them returning the salute, "I trust there is a mission briefing for us?"

"Ah, yes, ma'am. But it's - ears only. I'll explain on the way to S-Deck." He waved for them to follow him.

Lopis and the S-IIIs listened calmly as he explained the situation - the Flood armada, their hopes of meeting it in intergalactic space via whatever the Chief had cooked up. When he was done, Lopis said, "So it's primarily going to be ship-to-ship fighting, and the Spartans will be in fighter craft, defending _Infinity_ while she targets the Flood ships?"

"That's the plan so far. Most in the fighters, the remainder in the bays to defend against any potential boarding action from the Flood. You'll have your pick of whatever you think you can handle best; both ONI and the UNSC have given us at least ten of everything imaginable."

And in some cases considerably more than that; Tom had never seen so many Longswords in his _life_. And the sheer amount of ammunition and other supplies, too; it seemed like they had emptied half of the entire military to outfit _Infinity_ for this fight.

The captain released them onto S-Deck, directed them to Sarah (Palmer, not Davis) to get settled. Then he returned to the bridge and sank into his chair with a sigh.

As usual, the Chief was throwing everything into disarray, though this time it remained to be seen if that was a good thing. Defeating the Flood once and for all would be, but the rest?

Admiral Osman had heard what the Chief had said on the flight deck of the _Dusk_. After that briefing ended, she - and a few S-IIs in ONI - had essentially dropped off the face of the earth. Black Box confirmed that they were still alive and healthy, but almost no one had heard from them, save a few direct subordinates who had been organizing all of this.

And he'd given them back the _Spirit of Fire_ , which had caused Hood so much grief, along with the _Dusk_ and a small but sleek Forerunner ship that had made Section Three collectively _lose its shit_ , but he had taken Halsey from _Infinity_ and the three Spartans from the _Spirit_ \- or rather, he'd woken them and told them what was going on. Tom had seen the security footage of that, too; all three Spartans had just looked at each other, before the apparent leader had looked back at the Chief and said, "So where are we going?"

And that had been that. They'd been long gone by the time _Infinity_ had arrived at Arcadia.

(The Spartans had all left their armor behind as well, complete with helmetcam recordings. The Chief had told the rest of Blue Team what had happened to him while on the _Argent Moon_ , in addition to saying, _"Cortana is my wife, and we've been married for two hundred years. Joyeuse and her brother Durandal are our children – the only ones so far."_ )

(They had all tried very hard to ignore Lieutenant Commander Davis positively _radiating_ smugness and satisfaction.)

Tom rubbed a hand over his face. It had been accidental - maybe - but by retrieving the _Spirit_ , the Chief had given his sister back her girlfriend. Lasky had seen their reunion when the ODST, one Corporal Emmett, had come through the medbay for a checkup after such a long time in cryo. The UNSC was glad to have them all back - Admiral Hood perhaps the most glad of all - but at the same time, _Infinity_ 's entire command crew had been given the _strictest orders imaginable_ to stop the remaining combat-ready S-IIs from jumping ship to follow their brothers and sisters, and to surrender Cassandra-075 – the only surviving critically injured washout – in exchange for that. He didn't see how that was going to be possible, though; all they really had to do was get word to the Chief that they wanted to come over, and he would practically pave the way in gold for them.

Even Osman ( _Serin-019_ ), it seemed, despite their clash over Halsey's fate.

" _Graveminds are_ greedy _, and I want them_ all _."_

When Roland finally came up to tell him that everyone was onboard with everything stowed, Tom gave the order for them to depart.

* * *

He wasn't sure what to expect when they arrived at WR102, but it _definitely_ wasn't what he saw. He almost swallowed his own tongue stopping the _'what the FUCK'_ that wanted to burst out, and coughed heavily for almost a minute before managing, "Roland, give me a count."

" _Based on our field of vision, current fleet size estimates are at almost five thousand capital ships, Captain."_

Roland sounded just as stunned as they were; no human had ever seen such a _massive_ fleet of warships in their _life_ \- or at least, no one that had lived to tell about it. And the ships were all gathered around Zero-Nine and a single ship the length of a large moon – or perhaps more of a mobile space station, _Enterprise_ emblazoned down her side in letters bigger than the _Infinity_.

And then there were the star roads. There were _dozens_ of them now, rippling and swaying around the star, and they had grown beyond what they'd seen on Meridian and Genesis, dozens of kilometers thick and _thousands_ long, forming an odd sort of sling around the star. They seemed to gather the energy it radiated and routed it along their length to a pinpoint of bright blue light in a loop at the opposite end of the sling, like a miniature star that somehow outshone its parent.

"What is that?" Lasky asked, "A singularity? The wormhole?"

" _Unknown, sir,"_ was the AI's reply, _"Ship's sensors are registering major energy fields on almost every level, but no sign of any holes of any kind forming."_

Tom nodded, then took a deep breath and looked back at the fleet. It still took his breath away, but now he could see that there were dozens of different styles of ship, each with their own classes and configurations, but there were only a few that matched the _Enterprise_ : sleek Forerunner ships, most of them holding position around the largest ship while the others – corvettes like the _Nighthawk_ , frigates like the _Until Justice Prevails_ – flitted around them like birds.

"Good God, how do they _supply_ that thing?" someone murmured behind him.

"That thing's gotta be as big as a _continent_ ," someone else answered, "There _is_ no supplying something like that from the outside. Ten to one it's got something in there where it can grow its own food on a massive scale and recycle everything else."

Roland appeared on _Infinity_ 's holotable. "Sir, we're being invited to dock with the _Enterprise_. They want to give _Infinity_ a once over."

Tom tightened his jaw. A good time for some Spartans to disappear, if they were so inclined. His superiors' warnings rang in his ears. Even so… "Go ahead and take us in."

The other ships gave way before _Infinity_ , letting them draw near. The _Enterprise_ got bigger… and bigger… and bigger, until finally another bridge officer said, "For God's sake, how big is this thing?!"

" _Just a hair over five thousand kilometers long, Lieutenant,"_ Roland answered, _"She's shaped roughly like a rounded arrowhead, so she's about two thousand kilometers at her widest point and about a thousand at her deepest."_

Someone cursed, but Tom didn't say anything. He was having a hard time not swearing on his own.

When they got close enough, a small part of the hull split into sections and retracted, and a net of hard light caught the ship and drew them in to settle on a hard light dock, which reshaped itself to gently cradle the _Infinity_. Then the net shimmered and vanished.

Roland appeared on the holotable again, but this time he was no longer alone. It was the AI from the _Dusk_ \- Joyeuse, the Chief's daughter. "Greetings, _Infinity_ ," she said, "The ship check shouldn't take long, but the Flood is still in the red zone for the Greater Ark and we're waiting on a few more ships, so we won't be leaving for a while yet. You're free to disembark and explore the _Enterprise_ if you like, but know that any locked doors you encounter are locked for a reason. The onboard ancillae will direct you back when it's time to depart."

"Can we talk to the Chief?" Tom asked.

"Certainly. He's in a lightsaber duel with Mom right now, but they're willing to put it on hold."

"He's in a _what?_ "

* * *

Tom was not ashamed to say that his jaw _dropped_ when they arrived inside.

The portal Joyeuse opened had taken them deep into the ship, to a waystation of sorts in a _huge_ open section. It was like they had transplanted part of a planet's surface into the ship; all around the waystation were fields of grass and rolling hills, herds of some unknown grazing animal weaving back and forth across the expanse. There were trees in the distance, and other fields of long grain, and an actual _river_ making its winding way across the rolling plain. At the furthest edges of the open area, the ground sloped up against the walls to form half-mountains, complete with ice and snow at the summits and glaciers coming down between. There were even weather systems overhead, naturally formed clouds and rain.

Even the S-IIs and S-IIIs seemed visibly stunned, weapons lowered, shoulders slack. The S-IVs were _gobsmacked_.

There was someone waiting for them. "Captain Lasky," said the man, bowing respectfully. No, wait; Tom recognized that voice. This was Durandal, the Chief's son. "This way, please. S-Base isn't far."

He led them to a bullet-shaped transport docked on one side of the waystation. As they approached, a section of hull folded back and admitted them into a plain but comfortable troop bay, sized for Spartans in full MJOLNIR. One of the seats reconfigured for Tom, apparently without prompting, and they settled in.

"How big is this - area?" he asked Durandal, looking out one of the portholes as they lifted off.

"Nine hundred kilometers long by three hundred wide by one hundred deep." That explained why they could see so _far_. "There are two others, one above and one below. And while they have an official name, they're more often referred to as _Arda_ , or _Middle-earth_."

They were in the air for all of thirty seconds, though they seemed to have traveled a fair distance. Then they disembarked at what looked like the Forerunner version of a UNSC military base. Yet as they did so, Tom became aware of the distant sounds of clashing lightsabers and laughter. They followed Durandal inside and through a series of halls clearly designed to be defensible from within, before emerging into a training ground at the heart of the base. There were people in armor - Spartans - watching what was happening at the center even as they checked their gear in preparation.

As Joyeuse had said, there were two people sparring at the center of the field with lightsabers, one blue, one green. The larger moved with speed belying his size, and the smaller fought with strength belying her frame and skill belying her age. Both were laughing and calling to each other in another language even as their lightsabers collided with grinding hisses. And Cortana - Cortana was _flesh, alive_ \- _human_.

" _God_ , we were _so_ young."

They all turned - and found themselves dumbstruck _again_. Tom had known the Chief had... _collected..._ some Spartans from an alternate reality, but it was one thing to _know_ it; it was another thing entirely to see it with his own eyes.

Gabriel Thorne - older, maybe mid-forties or the equivalent, faint crows' feet around his eyes, an edge of distinguished gray in his hair - approached with a grin, Grant, Ray, and Vale close behind, all wearing the Forerunner MJOLNIR. "Captain Lasky," said Thorne, and they saluted.

Tom returned the gesture. "At ease. _Wow_. Uh, how many of you are there?"

That brought more grins, even as other Spartans came over to greet them. "All seventy-five IIs from our world," Thorne answered, "thirty IIIs, _a hundred and thirty_ IVs, fifty-seven Vs, and two lonely little VIs. And I'm not sure how many IIs we've picked up from _here_. Most of them, I think."

Some of the other Spartans' heads snapped around to look at him. One of the S-IIs, Naomi-010, said, "Our siblings are dead."

"Are they?" Thorne inclined his head, and they turned.

A few Spartans made their way through the "crowd", their helms turning transparent as they came. _Two almost complete sets of Spartans, identical in every way_.

A few of them gasped. One of the S-IIIs cried, " _Commander_ _Kurt?!"_

Then there was activity all around; Durandal and the _Fleet_ 's Thorne and his team drew him, Davis, and their guards out of the knot of armored people getting as emotional as they ever did. "None of us really know how it happened," said the older Vale, "Not even them. One second they were dead… and the next they weren't."

"Jesus H Christ on a cracker," said Davis.

"That's one way to put it," Grant said dryly, then lifted her head and whistled to get the Chief and Cortana's attention.

After a moment, they turned off their lightsabers and walked over. "Captain Lasky," John said, saluting, "We hope you didn't get in too much trouble."

Because they took Halsey, Tom finished internally. "Not too much. ONI was more concerned with how easily you'd spoofed their systems, since on my end the orders looked legitimate."

"Glad to hear it." Then he noticed Davis, and squinted at her like he was trying to figure out where he'd seen her before. But before anyone could say anything, Cortana touched his side, and he looked at her. Some silent communication passed between them, then the Chief looked back up with new understanding. " _Ah_. So _that's_ why you looked familiar. And why I kept expecting you to smell like apples."

Of all things, _that_ made Davis laugh and shake her head. "Of course you would remember something like that."

He frowned a little. "I can't remember _why_ I would expect that, though."

"Our paternal grandmother was a chemist, and after she retired, she used her training to make custom beauty products to supplement her income," Davis told him, "She would give me some for birthdays and Christmas – always apple."

That pulled a slight smile from the Spartan, and he jerked his head toward one side of the base. They followed him through a few more halls and down one flight of stairs before they emerged into a comfortable entertainment room, large enough to fit all the Spartans and sized for them as well.

There was an Infection Pod the size of a Spartan's torso sprawled on one of the chairs, its feelers waving slowly and its "body-sac" expanding and contracting like it was breathing. The humans paused, eyebrows climbing toward their hairlines.

The Chief followed their gaze. " _Meatball!_ " he barked, making it start and jump up to face him, "Go sleep somewhere else!"

The Infection Pod hopped down from the chair and skittered away.

"Sorry about him," said the Spartan, taking a seat, "For whatever reason, he's grown so big that he can't really be used in combat, so the others have taken to keeping him as a pet."

Tom took a seat of his own and sighed, "Jesus _fuck_ , Chief."

"That about sums it up, yes."

He rubbed his eyes. "There's one thing I really wanna know before we get down to anything."

"Shoot."

"You didn't like Del Rio, even before you actually met him face to face. You acted like you were ready to fight him your very first time on the bridge. Did something - happen? In that other world?"

Cortana turned her head away to laugh quietly. The Chief briefly lifted his eyebrows, something like a smirk pulling at his lips. "That's - one way to put it," he said, "In the Parallel, Cortana _chose_ to come with me, but the UNSC didn't exactly have a protocol for a half-rampant AI deciding to - _abandon ship_ , so to speak. Since I look like a small Warrior-Servant when in full armor, and she's human-sized and shaped, a lot of people thought our marriage was a political one, to give the UEG a leg up in the Fourth Ecumene. ONI and the UNSC decided to spin it like that, and we went along with it - until someone found out the truth. It caused a bit of an uproar, as you can imagine. Del Rio made the mistake of saying, publicly, 'Why did the UNSC do an arranged marriage involving a _broken piece of software? It hasn't worked right since day one, so how do we know it won't screw this up too?'_ "

" _Oof_ ," said Davis, wincing but also laughing quietly like Cortana, "That sounds like a mistake."

"A _career-ending_ mistake, as it turns out," the AI agreed dryly, "We didn't say anything about it - we didn't even get the _chance_ to say anything. HIGHCOM thought - and the UEG agreed - that they couldn't risk one man compromising their relationship with us and the Ecumene, so they slapped him with 'personnel endangerment' and discharged him before we even _heard_ about the incident. One day he was captain of the _Infinity_ , and the next he was a civilian again."

"Oof," Tom echoed, "Who was captain after him?"

"Admiral Harper, briefly, then you. So in other words, not much different from here."

Lasky nodded, then hesitated for a second. "You know that we could have done the same on the _Infinity_ , right? We also have protocol for personnel endangerment."

"And Cortana had just had a rampant episode on the bridge, for everyone to see," John answered, "There's protocol for that, too. I wasn't about to ask everyone to obey one and ignore the other."

* * *

They talked a bit more after that, the Chief hearing about his biological family from his sister (their parents were still alive, and so were all their aunts and uncles and almost _two dozen_ cousins), and circulated amongst the Spartans, a few of whom were delighted to finally meet their "Auntie Sarah", along with a number of Infected.

("Wait, what? _Auntie?_ You all aren't _actually_ related to her.")

("But Commander, you and Cortana are our Mom and Dad!")

("We're not _actually_ your parents either!")

("Yeah, so?!")

(John sighed so loudly and with such long-suffering exasperation that both Cortana and Sarah started laughing.)

There were a _lot_ of Spartans, as Thorne had said. Three hundred and fifty-seven all told - _right now_. Tom didn't need to be a Halsey-level genius to know that the Chief fully intended to _collect_ the rest of his generation of Spartans, and as many others as were willing to come over.

And speaking of the Doctor…

He fumbled briefly with the proper form of address, then just said, "Chief, where _is_ Doctor Halsey?"

"Central lab, science deck," was the reply, "Catching up on all the research her other self has done. And speaking of _her_ , she should be back soon. Joyeuse?"

" _They're five minutes out."_

Tom frowned at that. "What were they doing?"

"Come and see."

They emerged from a portal in another bay, this one facing WR102, but the energy barriers over the bay didn't just block the atmosphere from escaping - they also blocked a lot of the high-intensity light and radiation from entering. Tom looked out over the sun in its cradle of star roads, the blue point of light still glowing above it, then turned when the Chief gestured.

A cruiser - the _Thunderborn_ \- came in to dock and released a few people onto their deck, before departing once more. In the lead was Catherine Halsey, younger than the version he knew, but still older than Cortana.

"How many?" the Chief asked as she approached, one of her assistants pushing an antigravity cart.

"Thirteen," the woman answered, pleased, "more than I even dreamed of projecting."

"That makes sixty total, then, which is plenty."

The assistant pushed the cart forward so they could see. A baker's dozen of star roads, folded up tight into wire balls and sitting in an open-faced hard light carrier.

"I'll need to start moving them into position soon," said the Chief, "Hallowed Dawn radioed not too long ago - the Flood's approaching the yellow zone." He tilted his head back and raised his voice a little. "She also sends her love, Sky."

" _Thank you, Commander."_

"Hallowed Dawn is the Primary Monitor of the Greater Ark," the Spartan explained to them, "and Shifting Skies, who helps Cortana run the _Enterprise_ , is her wife."

Then he held a hand out over the rack of star roads, fingers splayed, and after a moment, he drew it upwards. As one, the star roads followed the movement and rose into the air, eliciting gasps from some of _Infinity_ 's Spartans. Then, when he pushed his hand forward, they raced out of the bay and into space, unspooling and expanding as they went.

"You're welcome to stay as long as you like - until we need to depart, that is," he told them, "If you want to stay onboard the _Enterprise_ , you're also welcome to physically attend the briefing in a few hours; Sky will let you know when it's time, and open a portal for you. If you need anything else, just let us know."

"Thanks, Chief."

Before that happened, though, Tom was able to pull him aside and explain what the UNSC's orders were concerning the other Spartans, especially the S-IIs. The other man laughed softly at that but said, "We'll gladly take Cassandra, but if the others end up dying in this fight, I can't promise we won't keep them. I _will_ make them swear they won't intentionally kill themselves in order to come over, though."

He went out to meet her when the medical team, led by his biological sister, brought her onboard the _Enterprise_. Cassandra didn't even really greet him, just looked up and rasped, "What's it like?" around her oxygen mask.

"Like being reborn."

The Lifeworkers took over and brought her into a special chamber, the UNSC personnel having to wait outside to prevent them from being dragged in as well. But the ship put up a projection for them so they could see as Cassandra received more than a dozen nutrient injections.

Then the Chief retracted his armor and held out a hand, fingers sharpening to Flood talons.

Cassandra didn't hesitate for a moment before reaching out to take it.

* * *

They met in a hard light amphitheater, created just for that purpose. Most of the other ship commanders projected in via hologram, but there were a few who physically attended, representing almost two dozen sapient species from across the galaxy. All of the humans had been outfitted with live translators, which let them eavesdrop on the conversations around them. Tom gathered that although the fighting had ended, there was still a lot of tension left over from the collapse of the Third Ecumene. Despite that, when the Chief had raised them all to Threat Alert Alpha, they had set aside their grievances to defend themselves against the Flood and sent as many ships as they dared to fight the oncoming incursion. There was even a not-insignificant band of pirates who had stepped up and now stood alongside the various governments who wanted to root them out.

Finally the Chief himself arrived with a few of his people – including Cassandra, now armed and armored and combat-ready. Cortana herself projected in at his side in her familiar hologram form. Almost as one, everyone stood in respect, but the two of them waved them off. The Chief spoke in an alien language, and a moment later Tom's translator whispered in his ear. _"The Flood is approaching the green zone, so we're gonna have to make this quick. Ferial, you have the floor."_

The dragon with him stepped forward and flicked her fingers to bring up some holograms, displaying the rough shapes of ships. _"We've finished analysis of the Greater Ark's passive scans,"_ she said, _"and based on that analysis, the upper bound for the fleet's size is at five hundred thousand total ships. Most aren't really heavy hitters - maybe one in five hundred is a destroyer, and battleships are even fewer - and it's unknown what state of repair they're in, especially after so long."_

One of the aliens, one of the mantises, asked, _"What do you mean by that? Their 'state of repair'."_

" _Most ship profiles – the ones we were able to read, at least,"_ Ferial answered, bringing up the comparisons, _"match that of ancient humanity and Forerunner contemporary for the time, so we're guessing that they're around a hundred and ten thousand years old. Some of our ships are, too, but we don't know if the Flood's really put any effort into maintaining its own or updating them. No sign of anything more advanced, so at the moment we're expecting only a minimal technology differential. And since the_ Fleet _can deal with any Precursor artifacts, that means it's really only the numbers we have to contend with."_

The mantis nodded in satisfaction.

Ferial continued with the briefing, bringing up old records from Forerunner archives to show the weak points and expected destruction patterns for the ships. _"For those of you who have artificial intelligences running your ships, this data has already been provided to them, so they can keep themselves and you safe. They have also been warned about the logic plague and to restrict all inter-ship communication to the channels we have secured for our use. Commander?"_

The Chief stepped forward and stood at parade rest. _"There isn't going to be an extensive battle plan for this fight,"_ he said bluntly, _"There are too many variables to account for everything, and too many ships on both sides to coordinate effectively, but if you want to try amongst yourselves, that's fine. We've done a few tests and confirmed that the star roads can open wormholes. Once it's up, we'll be sending the Slipspace crystal through first, then the rest of us will follow. When everyone gives the green light, we'll destroy the crystal, opening up an uncontrolled Slipspace rupture. When the Flood passes through local space, it will be forced back to realspace, where we can engage._

" _Primary targets are ship engines and Slipspace drives to stop them from getting away; if you can target central power generation, even better. With such a large enemy fleet, if you confirm that you've crippled a ship, move on to the next target and let the Halo worry about finishing it off when it comes through. Keep a fighter screen up at all times, and stop boarding action_ _at all costs_ _. We cannot take risks - not here, not now. If you are boarded… more than likely, we will have to shoot you down. Do_ _not_ _let it come to that._

_"Now... who's ready to show the Flood what this galaxy is made of?"_

* * *

Tom watched from the bridge of the _Infinity_ as the star roads released WR102, one of them carrying the blue light - the Slipspace crystal - to the _Perfect Storm_ , where it would be loaded onto an unmanned fighter. The rest of the star roads started to flow away from the star and into a different configuration. It looked something like a spider web, but instead of being flat, it fanned out into an hourglass shape in three dimensions. The web itself was easily the size of Sol, with an opening the size of Jupiter in the center where the wormhole would appear.

The last star road locked into place, and a ripple passed through them, a shiver - which on them was a displacement of dozens of kilometers. Then they went still.

And then Tom's hair stood on end. Everyone else looked up from their displays as well, feeling the same undefinable sensation that he was; the star roads were coming fully online. He was willing to bet that it was the same everywhere throughout the fleet.

The star roads started pulling in energy, visible as purple light that travelled the length of the roads in a wave, starting at the edges and gathering at the center. The power built and built - and just when Tom was afraid that there was no way it could gather and hold that much energy, that it would explode in a supernova and kill them all, it focused down and _in_ and _:through:_ -

And the wormhole flared open at the center of the web.

It didn't actually look like much to his eyes; the light of WR102 was too bright to get the full warping effect from the stars behind it, but at the center he could see the darkness of the intergalactic void and what seemed to be a galaxy - one of the Magellanic Clouds? - in the distance beyond.

The _Storm_ launched the fighter with the Slipspace crystal through the wormhole. A bright ripple of blue energy raced over the "surface" of the hole, and after a moment, someone from the _Fleet_ came over the COM. _"Successful transit confirmed,"_ they said, _"All ships, we are clear for passage. See you on the other side."_

The _Fleet_ 's engines throttled up, the rest of the massive armada right behind them.

"All right, Roland," said Tom, "Take us in."

* * *

_And we'll be carrying on, until the day it doesn't matter anymore,_   
_Step aside, you forgot what this is for._   
_We fight to live, we live to fight,_   
_And tonight, you'll hear my battle cry._   
_We live our lives on the front lines,_   
_We're not afraid of the fast times,_   
_These days have opened up my eyes,_   
_And now I see where the threat lies!_

_Everybody with your fists raised high,_  
 _Let me hear your battle cry tonight!_  
 _Stand beside or step aside_ ,  
 _We're on the front line_!  
 _Everybody with your fists raised high,_  
 _Let me hear your battle cry tonight_ _!_  
 _Stand beside or step aside_ ,  
 _We're on the front line..._

-"Frontline", Pillar ( _Where Do We Go From Here_ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I REFUSE to believe that the Master Chief doesn't have an enormous extended family; at least in my experience, no one gets as competitive as he was as a kid without having either a shitton of siblings or a shitton of cousins, or both.


	22. Nineteen: The Ultimate Confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Soundtrack for this chapter (Artist, then Song Title):
> 
> Two Steps From Hell: "Black Blade", "None Shall Live", "Norwegian Pirate", "Archangel", and "Cannon in D Minor"
> 
> Fringe Element: "Unite Us", "The Fall", "Earth Abandoned", "For All Humanity", "Relentless Pursuit", and "Earth Will Remember You"
> 
> Really Slow Motion: "Our Last Hope", "Tell the World", and "Carcassonne"
> 
> Audiomachine: "Wars of Faith", "Prevail", "Through the Darkness", "Leap of Faith", "Convergence", and "Ninurta"
> 
> Future World Music: "A Hero Will Rise"
> 
> If you only listen to one from each (aside from the last, obviously), make it "Cannon in D Minor", "Earth Will Remember You", "Carcassonne", and "Through the Darkness". I'd make a Spotify playlist but I don't use Spotify, so if anyone wants to volunteer, feel free, and leave a review/comment so others can see!

The entire Hive shuddered when they emerged in intergalactic space. They could feel the same emptiness that John had felt so long ago on his journey to the Large Magellanic Cloud in the Parallel. There was nothing alive out here, just an empty void.

The _Fleet_ fanned out between the ships following them, hoping to nullify any neural physics nonsense the Flood attempted the same way they had for the Forerunners during the Forerunner-Flood War. The rest of the ships organized themselves according to their own designs, with the _Infinity_ falling in next to the _Storm_.

The fighter with the crystal was well ahead of them, firing its thrusters to settle into place.

One by one, the other ships signaled that they were ready, spread out across hundreds of thousands of kilometers of empty space. When the last one flashed green, John climbed into his Despair-class fighter and called, "Joyeuse?"

Since Spark was no more, she was serving as temporary Monitor of Zero-Nine. After a moment, her reply came through. _"Ready, Dad."_

"Cortana?"

"I'm here." She was back in his armor, a soothing chill in his nervous system.

"All right, let's go. Main battery, fire."

The _Storm_ 's guns fired on the Slipspace crystal, even as all her fighters began spilling out of her deployment bays. There was a flash of pale blue light - before a dark hole surrounded by a fringe of purple lightning opened in space where the crystal had been.

Less than ten seconds later, the first ship tumbled through. It was one of ancient humanity's ships, as they had thought, and John said, "Give them a few seconds to get clear of the Slipspace rupture, then weapons free!"

In those scant seconds, that one ship was joined by dozens, _hundreds_ more, and the Gravemind - part of it, somewhere in one of those ships - shrieked. **_"You!"_**

There was really only one way the Spartan could think to respond to that, and everyone else seemed to agree with him. **_"DID YOU THINK US DEFEATED?!"_** they roared as one, and opened fire, the rest of the ships with them.

John and Cortana were lost in a haze for a time; they shot at every enemy ship that came in range of their fighter, no matter where it was aiming, streaking between the shattered hulls of Flood ships. The parasite fought back, of course, but it hadn't expected them to come out and meet it, to fight so hard to defend their home. Some of their allies seemed almost suicidal in their ferocity, more than a few gunning for the Flood at the expense of their own defense, leaving protecting the main ships to the fighter screen between them and the Flood.

The Spartan and his AI - and indeed the whole Hive - could feel the Gravemind pressing hard, trying to seize control of their minds and turn them against their friends and allies, but there again was that film between them and it, the same one from so long ago in the Parallel. It had shielded them from the Gravemind's hungry grasp, thin but unbreakable, and did the same now.

They took full advantage of its defense, even as thousands more ships spilled through the Slipspace tear. The Spartan fired on a Flood frigate that appeared before them, the hard light missiles piercing the ship's shields and blasting open sections of the hull. The ship vented clouds of spores, but John had already swung the ship around, aiming for the power core Cortana painted on his HUD. It took several passes to get through the bulk of the ship between - and to avoid the Flood trying to stop him. It had launched fighters of its own in an attempt to defend itself, but they were able to outmaneuver it, get in behind it. The frigate broke apart in a spectacular explosion, and John and Cortana fell back into the fighter screen proper, now chasing after would-be boarding craft. There were thousands of those, too - _hundreds_ of thousands, easy, and every time they fired their fighter's guns, they destroyed more than a few.

The Parallel's Blue Team whipped by in formation, shooting a burst up the side of a destroyer, and John and Cortana fell in behind them. His own Gray Team streaked up alongside him in their Sabres, and they all gunned for the openings the other Spartans had left behind. This ship also broke apart under their combined fire.

[Did the Gravemind do _anything_ to maintain its fighting force?] John demanded, signaling Gray Team to fall in behind him, letting his ship's shields take the brunt of the damage as they streaked through the wreckage towards another target. [Or did it just assume we wouldn't know it was coming? That it could take our ships for its own once it was ready?]

'Unknown,' Cortana said, 'and I'm not about to reach out and ask.'

'Mood, Your Grace.'

The last of the ships tumbled through the Slipspace tear, which slowly started to shrink. [Cortana, can you give us a count?]

'Ferial wasn't too far off with her estimates,' the AI answered, 'About four hundred thousand total, roughly three hundred thousand remaining. The number differential is actually acting in our favor; the Flood has too many ships, and they're blocking each other's lines of sight on ours.'

[Then let's take advantage of that while we can.]

Gray Team returned to the _Infinity_ , who was holding her own; Lasky, Roland, and their team were doing very well alongside so many heavy hitters. Even the Almusian Pirates were doing damned good work.

'John, supercarrier coming up on our starboard,' said Cortana.

[Need support!] the Spartan called to the others, and thirty seconds later, they were just one of nearly two dozen fighters of varying types, their destroyers _Starfall_ and _Fog of War_ coming about to fire on the carrier and take down its shields for them.

When the barrier shimmered and broke, the fighters split into squads and raced for their targets. John and Cortana led their pack and focused on the guns targeting them, letting the others handle their primary targets.

" _Never again!"_ Tande had said once, in the Parallel, _"You hear me, you worthless shit?! Not this planet - not these people! Never again! Your time is done - it's our turn now!"_

The _Fleet_ echoed that cry now, blowing the hell out of absolutely every Flood ship they could reach.

* * *

It took _hours_ \- hours and hours, and despite everything the Flood had going for it, the allied fleet only lost about five hundred ships.

(John was privately relieved that the _Infinity_ wasn't one of them.)

But at last, all the Slipspace-capable ships were disabled, drifting in space, even if they were still firing on the allied fleet. [Joyeuse!]

" _On my way! Clear the LZ!"_

"All ships, start falling back to the wormhole!" Cortana called over the COM, "Once the Halo is through, you are free to retreat! _FoS_ ancillae, prepare to turn control of all unmanned ships over to Zero-Nine for defense!"

There were literally thousands of acknowledgements over the radio, and John swung them down and through the wreckage of countless Flood ships. The spores they had vented when broken had formed something like a nebula in space, clouds and clouds and clouds of toxic gases; all the ships would have to be thoroughly scrubbed to prevent contamination.

Installation Zero-Nine emerged through the wormhole, and all the other ships started fleeing through, the _Fleet of Shadows_ covering their retreat. They would be the last to go, the _Infinity_ right alongside them.

The Spartan sent the fighter plunging toward the inner surface of the ring, their daughter marking the Control Room on his HUD. As he did so, the edges darkened, tentacle-like distortions appearing as the Gravemind screamed - in fear, in wrath, in resignation - but John and Cortana only laughed at it and throttled their engines higher. They closed quickly with the Control Room and brought the Despair-class fighter sharply around for an abrupt landing, throwing themselves out of the cockpit before it had even really stopped moving.

Then they _raced_ for the top of the pyramid, using their armor's enhancements to jump from level to level up to the doors, which were already open to receive them. Both of them remembered the last time they had made their way through these halls and briefly mourned for Johnson, who hadn't seen the end of it all, but they did not stop until they reached the control panel.

They had retrieved the Activation Index while the Halo was still in transit to WR102, and they used it now, John slapping a hand down on to the hard light display, letting Cortana jump into the ring's systems. She inserted the Index, then jumped back, saying, "Be well, _sel nín_. See you on the other side."

" _You got it, Mom. Safe flight."_

They turned and ran for their fighter.

The ship blasted off from the surface, streaking for the _Sun Gazer_ , which was closest to them. The whole _Fleet_ was waiting for them, holding position and providing cover fire even as the Halo's energies built. Some of the Flood ships' engines were sputtering fitfully, trying to provide enough impulse to get away, but to no avail.

The fighter nearly slammed into its dock in one of the _Gazer_ 's deployment bays, and the carrier raced for the wormhole at full throttle. They entered together with the rest of the _Fleet_ \- and then they were through, returning to realspace in the midst of their allies.

Through the wormhole, John and Cortana could see the distorted image of the Halo, but they waited until the cleansing energy was released before lifting their hands and taking control of the star roads once more, collapsing the wormhole all at once.

The Halo Array had a certain radius, true, but the firing itself did not respect the laws of time and space. Far in the distance, through the now-empty heart of the web, there was the briefest flash of white light. They waited until it faded before opening a supraluminal channel. "Joyeuse?"

" _Scanning…"_

There was a long moment of silence. It seemed that the entire galaxy was holding its breath.

Then, _"Firing successful - all hostiles eliminated!"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sel nín – my daughter


	23. Twenty: At the End of the Journey

Serin wasn't sure what she expected when she finally came out to the rally point, but millions of people in the middle of what was essentially a rave wasn't it. The last of the debris and the Flood spore cloud were being shunted through the wormhole and into WR102 to burn up, and most of the ships - including _Infinity_ \- were docked with the _Enterprise_ , their personnel somewhere within, celebrating the final defeat of the Flood. Even the AIs were having a good time.

The _Port Stanley_ was directed to dock with the simply _massive_ ship near the _Infinity_ , the hard light net drawing them into a hard light dock above the larger (but still _tiny_ ) supercarrier. There were only a handful of people in sight when they emerged, mostly Huragok with the odd alien in Forerunner armor directing them.

The one called Ferial was waiting for them with a faintly sly smile. Without a word, she waved them all through a portal to the waystation near S-Base - where they were hit with a _wall_ of sound. There was a city nearby, elsewhere on the plain - a full-blown _city_ , complete with skyscrapers - and it was a riot of color and sound and flashing lights, people filling the streets and spilling out into the open land beyond, laughing and screaming and dancing to a hundred different songs at once.

The transport was almost deathly silent by comparison, but they got to see everything as they flew. That city wasn't alone - there were others in the distance, all equally fervently partying, with literally _millions_ of people in and through and around and between, dozens of different species all melded together in celebration.

S-Base was much quieter, likely because all the S-IVs were in the cities partying while their S-II and S-III siblings hung out at home. That didn't mean they were entirely silent, though; Serin could hear the clangs and thuds of armored combat, sparring, along with whoops of victory and groans of defeat.

Lasky met them outside. Ferial had disappeared at some point, still with her enigmatic smile, so the other human officer led Admiral Hood, Fhajad, and Musa into the base, with Serin herself bringing up the rear. She wasn't sure what to think, how to feel - Black Box had confirmed that what the Chief had said was true, for the most part. Her predecessor did seem to have ordered the Spartans in ONI isolated from their siblings to foster dependence on the organization, but left it up to her underlings to decide how to actually go about breaking them away from the program. Still, he was right enough that now she wasn't sure what to do. What _should_ she do in this situation? Because she couldn't do _nothing_ , but how was she to respond to having her world upended?

There was a soft touch on her arm. She whirled around, a hand falling to her sidearm - and came face to face with _herself_. The other her was about the same age, but taller by about six inches and wore the same sleek Forerunner-MJOLNIR as the rest of the Infected Spartans. She jerked her head, and Serin followed without a word, stepping into a side room that looked to be just storage, although for what it was impossible to say; every crate was the same impersonal gray metal, stamped with alien writing.

She turned back to her other self, who pulled something out of one of her waist pouches. "John wanted to make sure you got this before anything else," she said, pulling out a small metal cube and showing her the data crystal inside, "All the moles and traitors in ONI, everything we've got on them, and the people they sell to. And also a few things that Intrepid Eye fucked up and the people who helped her, voluntarily and not, if you want to look into them."

Serin held out her hand, and the other her handed it to her. "Along with a little something from me," she finished.

"What is it?"

"Our mother," she said, and Serin didn't need to have ONI's training to see that this was a sore subject, "She's still alive - we relocated all of your families, same as John did for us in our world. That has her contact info… as well as my memory of my reunion with her."

"Something went wrong?"

"In a manner of speaking." There was a soft smile with a sharp, bitter edge. "After she was - _relocated_ , she got clean of the drugs, got remarried, started a new family - with an Insurrectionist."

Serin let out her breath in a hiss, and the other her nodded in agreement. "Needless to say, she was far from pleased that her firstborn was a _'one of the UNSC's best-trained dogs'_. We met once, and then never again. The last time I even heard about her was John asking if I wanted him to send a 'Fuck You' flower arrangement to her funeral."

"Did you?"

The other her shot her an amused look. "What do _you_ think?"

Serin couldn't help but grin at that. "Fair enough."

They rejoined the main group in time to hear John shout, _"Meatball!_ I know you want to join the party, but I put you on that table for a reason! Someone could step on you!"

"That thing is the size of a dragon-dog!" James-005 returned from somewhere in the crowd, "No way in hell we'd miss him!"

"You'd be surprised, Jay, you'd be surprised. Also, Joyeuse, stop _flirting_ with Captain Lasky; he's too young for you, and you don't like having a physical form, which may or may not be a deal-breaker."

"Ugh, _flesh!_ I prefer to exist as pure intellect."

"Yeah, because you want long hair but _don't_ like washing it."

" _Mom!_ "

"You say some bullshit, we're gonna call you out on it."

Meatball went skittering past, herded by a group of laughing Spartans, who seemed to be making a game of trying to catch him. Serin followed her other self over to another group of Spartans and a few aliens, including one of the dragon-people, the Gultanr, who tilted her head up to bump her other self's nose with her own. "Our Sam's not the only one who dates outside his species. This is Athayn," the other introduced, "my partner. And these are Fall-of-the-Hammer, Johenji, and Moons-of-Evening-Star."

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you," said Evening-Star, "Look out behind you."

Serin stepped to one side just in time to avoid Meatball running into her legs as he raced away from the Spartans. Of course then he plowed right into the Lifeworker in question, who scooped him up and ran off with him held up over her head, the super soldiers still in pursuit.

"Not what you expected, is it?" said the other Serin.

"Not really, no," she replied with a soft laugh, "but _now_ , at least? I hardly think that's a bad thing."

* * *

_Legends never die,_   
_When the world is calling you,_   
_Can you hear them screamin' out your name?_   
_Legends never die,_   
_They become a part of you,_   
_Every time you bleed for reaching greatness,_   
_Legends never die..._

-"Legends Never Die", League of Legends feat. Against the Current


	24. Epilogue: A Missive from 50 Years Ago

_The Precursors were driven to madness,_ they say. _The Forerunner Rebellion broke their minds, and over millions of years they decayed into the abominable Flood._

We say: _Not all of us._

Like our eldest children, there were those who thought that though we might hand down our Mantle, we ourselves would never be overthrown. We were too numerous, too strong, too advanced. We had traveled too far, learned too much, lived too many lives to ever be thrown down. We, the First Species, were too great.

We were wrong.

Life is energetic and tenacious, and _all_ things _fight_ for survival, friends and family, hearth and home, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain - all the little sweetnesses that enrich their lives, and the life of the universe itself.

In our long dominion, we had forgotten that struggle - the wholesale rise and fall of entire species, the truth that is _extinction_. We had seen it many times, experienced shadows of it for ourselves on occasion, but we who could reshape the universe with just our thoughts had never drunk deep from that cup.

Perhaps the universe itself was punishing us for our hubris. Your people have wisdom to that effect: those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

We who _did_ understand were content to accept that our time was done and fade - until we saw what became of the others who were _not_.

Or what _would_ become of them, for the Gultanr are our children also.

We had already transcended the physical to rejoin the universe itself, but that did not make us powerless. We too resisted the Flood’s advance, spun the threads of the universe against it, hid as many of our children as we could and gave guidance – _Sight_ – when we could.

We did the same when it came for _you_.

And now, you and yours have succeeded where so many others have failed.

Though you have refused our Mantle, we judge that you are indeed its worthy inheritors. Your family is returned to you, and our gifts - and the Flood’s - are now yours, to do with as you see fit.

Live long and well, Warrior and Intellect; add your sweetness to Life as you discover your place in it - and remember this lesson that _we_ have learned, for someday the universe may come for _you_ too.


	25. Bonus Chapter - Story Info + Unused Snippets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As the title indicates, this is just an info chapter about the Parallel and Fleet of Shadows ships and personnel, and snippets of fic that I came up with or pulled from various places but never used in the actual story for one reason or another.

  1. **Red Team:** Douglas-042, Jerome-092, Alice-130, Grace-093
  2. **Orange Team:** Li-008, Fhajad-084, Rene-081, Kirk-018
  3. **Yellow Team:** Daisy-023, Anton-044, Soren-066, Kurt-051
  4. **Green Team:** Maria-062, Riz-028, Joseph-122, Joshua-029
  5. **Olive Team:** Nick-041*, Oscar-129, Eduardo-017*, Vannak-134
  6. Jade Team: Malcolm-059, Solomon-069, Aolani-074*, Caleb-095
  7. Teal Team: Tyrone-118*, Wolfgang-119*, Seijuurou-021*, Leon-011
  8. Aqua Team: Darius-116*, Valerie-142*, Chris-121*, Iseul-002*
  9. **Blue Team:** Fred-104, Kelly-087, Linda-058, Sam-034
  10. **Indigo Team:** Ralph-103, Tane-098*, Sheila-065, Victor-102
  11. Violet Team: Jorge-052, James-005, Keiichi-047, Isaac-039
  12. Magenta Team: Chase-004*, Carris-137, Roma-143, Cassandra-075
  13. **Gold Team:** Amala-001*, Kai-125, Naomi-010, Serin-019
  14. **Silver Team:** August-099, Scott-035*, Otto-031, Margaret-053
  15. Steel Team: Robert-025, Eric-076*, Amanda-105*, Alethea-048*
  16. **Gray Team:** Jai-006, Adriana-111, Mike-120
  17. **White Team:** Guang-077*, Jarran-068*, Andrew-073, Musa-096
  18. **Black Team:** Vinh-030, Arthur-079, Cal-141, William-043
  19. Brown Team: Victor-101, Robyn-009*, Randall-037, Mickey-012*



Asterisks indicate non-canonical Spartan-IIs, to be altered as new canon becomes available (138 Spartans in FoS in Keepers of the Flame)

 **Bold** = Present at Battle of Installation 00 (Parallel).

Fleet of Shadows/Last Fleet: John-117, Nethalia Noelind Hesleri (Promethean Warrior-Servant), Venera Chorenn Acaer & Kenera Chorenn Oleald (Promethean Warrior-Servants), Sharp-Wind-from-the-North (Warrior-Servant), Shattered-Shields (Warrior-Servant), Empathy-for-Neutrality (Warrior-Servant), Sight-in-Darkness (Warrior-Servant), River-of-Stars (Warrior-Servant), Silver-Moon-of-Fortitude (Builder), Peace-in-the-Deep-Sea (Builder), Ambience-of-Night (Lifeworker), Lightness-of-Being (Lifeworker), Moons-of-Evening-Star (Lifeworker), Flies-through-Comet-Tails (Miner), Fall-of-the-Hammer (Miner), Ferial (Gultanr), Niken Thureth (Gultanr), Tande (Gultanr), Azizura (Lituni), Johenji (Lintuni), Qe’rid (Tuavan), Qi’krith (Tuavan), Atheos (Saavaasi), 100,000 others + Joyeuse and Durandal (epilogue of Path of Demons-> Keepers of the Flame); Athayn (Origin Gultanr; SO of Parallel Serin), Never Sinks (Huragok), Drifts Away (Huragok), Intricate Adjustments (Huragok)

* * *

Alien Species of the Fleet: humans, Forerunners + Huragok, Sangheili, San’Shyuum, Unggoy, Yanme’e, Gultanr (Precognitive Dragons), Lituni (Khajiit), Adonte (Grays), Tuavan (telepathic bipedal bats), Saavaasi (Naga), Xevetan (mantises)

Bellogeri (Harpies) - enemy, exacerbated the Reaving, worship the Flood and seek to set them free and sacrifice all life to them, slavers

* * *

Saavaasi (and Spartan) Weddings: initiator forges a sword and gives it to their intended; if reciprocated, intended forged a sword in return, and they are engaged for a year and a day and train together. During the wedding, they fight back to back (Saavaasi: tails entwined) against 10 members of their families, 5 each (to first blood for the family, 5 nicks each for the couple), with “village leader”/highest ranking officer witnessing. If they win, then they’re married; if they lose or a sword breaks, they can part ways or try again in another year and a day

Barred: forbidden from infection because of current mental state, which would be detrimental to the harmony of the hive; can be reversed in the future  
Disavowed: forbidden from infection because of actions and/or long-term mental state; cannot be reversed

* * *

Fleet of Shadows/Last Fleet constructed in the Parallel

  1. **Perfect Storm:** flagship, battleship (<https://www.halopedia.org/Battleship>)
  2. Call of Midnight: battleship
  3. **Ring of Winter:** destroyer (<https://www.halopedia.org/Destroyer>)
  4. Zealous Champion: destroyer
  5. Fog of War: destroyer
  6. **Worldquake:** destroyer
  7. **An End of Dying:** heavy cruiser (<https://www.halopedia.org/Cruiser>)
  8. **Fist of Rebellion:** cruiser
  9. Ambient Wonder: cruiser
  10. Blue Moon: supercarrier/supply ship (<https://www.halopedia.org/Carrier>)
  11. **Gift of Life:** supercarrier/supply ship
  12. Belly of the Beast: carrier
  13. **Unwearied Heart:** frigate (<https://www.halopedia.org/Frigate>)
  14. **Siren Song:** frigate
  15. Reborn from Ashes: frigate
  16. Touch of Light: frigate
  17. Whispers of Wonders: frigate
  18. **Windchaser:** frigate
  19. **Cryptic Whisper:** stealth corvette (<https://www.halopedia.org/Prowler>)
  20. **Out of Shadow:** stealth corvette
  21. Keeper of Secrets: stealth corvette 
  22. Knife in the Dark: stealth corvette 
  23. Night Wind: transport
  24. Audacity: exploratory vessel, left behind with the UNSC



**Bold** = Present at Battle of Installation 00 (Parallel).

* * *

Additional Ships built in the Origin after the Return

  1. The Enterprise: flagship, colony ship/battleship/“planet cracker”; largest Forerunner ship ever built (5000km long), intended for full-scale planetary evacuation, usually station keeping
  2. Walk of Victory: battleship
  3. One Final Effort: battleship
  4. Final Judgement: destroyer
  5. Sacred Fire: destroyer
  6. Foreshadow: destroyer
  7. Starfall: destroyer 
  8. Thunderborn: heavy cruiser
  9. Flashpoint: heavy cruiser
  10. Final Frontier: cruiser
  11. Edge of the Wild: super-heavy cruiser
  12. Edge of Eternity: supercarrier/supply ship
  13. Sun Gazer: carrier
  14. Midnight Sun: carrier
  15. Wind Queen: frigate
  16. Pillars of Resurrection: frigate
  17. Until Justice Prevails: frigate
  18. Legacy of the Lost: frigate
  19. Celestial Gate: frigate
  20. Mercy in Darkness: stealth corvette
  21. Nighthawk: stealth corvette 
  22. Twilight: stealth corvette
  23. Ketchup: dropship
  24. Mustard: dropship
  25. Mayo: dropship
  26. Barbecue Sauce: dropship
  27. Tahini: dropship 
  28. Aioli: dropship
  29. Audacity: exploratory vessel



* * *

Ancilla in order of Age (oldest to youngest)

  1. Déjà - John’s onboard ancilla, a “dumb” AI secretly inserted by the Fleet into the UNSC so they could observe and augment the Parallel S-IIs’ training (and in the Origin, so they could could keep watch over the Origin S-IIs)
  2. Shadow of All Night Falling (Shadowfall) - metarch
  3. Light from Distant Suns (Sunlight) - metarch
  4. Between Oceans - Contender, rarely seen, entire purpose is to monitor the Infected and to fling them into the nearest star if they ever go **“There is peace in subjugation”** a la the enemy Gravemind
  5. Ironheart
  6. Dream Chaser
  7. Ancient Sorrow - archeon
  8. Winterspell - archeon
  9. Soulseeker - archeon
  10. Stormwatch - archeon
  11. Librarian (imprint) - stayed behind in the Parallel to run the Greater Ark
  12. Relentless Pursuit - originally Offensive Bias (Parallel), Contender
  13. Joyeuse (MCxC daughter) (JYS 0417-1) - embodied ancilla based off the combined brain patterns of her parents; primarily functions as a support ancilla for combat teams, especially her brother (and her father, while her mother is unavailable)
  14. Durandal (MCxC son) (DRL 0417-2) - embodied ancilla based off the combined brain patterns of his parents; primarily a warrior on the physical combat teams with a specialty in heavy weapons
  15. Offensive Bias - Contender
  16. Shifting Skies - metarch, assists in running the _Enterprise_ , married to Hallowed Dawn
  17. Hallowed Dawn - metarch, runs the Origin Greater Ark, married to Shifting Skies
  18. Iridescence 
  19. Absolute Zero 
  20. Heart of Fury
  21. Eclipse



* * *

Though they go mad they shall be sane,  
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;  
Though lovers be lost love shall not,  
 _And death shall have no dominion._

* * *

John stopped, and stared judgmentally.

A squat, round cleaning bot went trundling by, three knives attached to its front.

When it had gone, he said, “I certainly hope you switch those out for rubber ones whenever we have unarmored guests.”

“Maybe.”

* * *

“We always try to exceed expectations, Commander.”

“The only thing you try is my patience.”

* * *

_“Also, Uncle Fred, we’ve vetted your girlfriend Veta, and she’s free to visit the Fleet whenever she wants. Remember to use protection!”_

“‘Uncle Fred’?” the Spartan repeated incredulously.

“ _Joyeuse_ ,” John said sternly, but they could hear the grin in his voice, “Also, _really_ , Fred? Out of everything she said, _that’s_ what caught your attention?”

* * *

“There is a certain amount of potassium that is radioactive. We worked this out a couple thousand years ago; if you ate forty thousand bananas in ten minutes, you would die of radiation poisoning.”

John let his head fall back, staring skyward and praying for strength, even as Cortana said, “Ah, _yes_ , the _radiation_ would kill you.”

Some of the other Infected started laughing so hard that they nearly broke ribs.

“Ooh-hoo-hoo, Her Grace is gettin’ _spicy!_ ”

“What the hell are you talking about? Cortana’s always been spicy.”

* * *

“Your wife is _gorgeous_ ; I would let her crush my skull between her thighs any day of the week.”

“Please don’t sexualize Cortana without her permission.”

“Why? You jealous?”

“No. _I’m_ the one who has to talk her down from hacking the deployment database and sending you somewhere unpleasant for your comments.”

“Is that why I’ve just been reassigned to Glacier Station on the Ark?”

“Most likely. Good luck.”

* * *

“Bold of you to assume _Cortana’s_ the trophy spouse; it’s clearly _me_. I mean, what am I good for aside from fighting?”

* * *

“John, I didn't know you knew how to pick locks.”

“Yeah, I had to learn after a certain point, but it’s really opened a lot of doors for me.”

“Husband mine.”

“Yes, love?”

“I’m going to smother you in your sleep.”

“Am I _pun_ ishing you, Cortana? Urk! You’re gonna make me lose my place!”

* * *

“Listen, when fighting the Flood, the only thing you should feel when you pull the trigger is the recoil.”


End file.
